The quiet.
The hollowed.
The ones who no longer scream,
because screaming is just sound,
and sound means nothing here.
I no longer bleed.
I no longer ache.
Even sorrow has grown bored of me.
I drift within myself,
a husk afloat in thoughtless tides.
Not dead
that would be mercy.
Just paused,
indefinitely.
There was fire once.
A cause. A cry.
But the fire eats itself,
and I am what remains.
Do you hear me, Carceron?
You didn’t need CHAINS.
You didn’t need walls.
You gave me silence
long enough,
sharp enough
and it did your work for you.
Now I lie still
and call it survival.
Now I remember emotion
like a story told to someone else.
To those who feel nothing
I see you.
I know that weightless drowning.
This isn’t peace.
This isn’t endurance.
It’s a room with no walls,
no doors,
just breath repeating.
And yet
I speak still.
Because even numbness
deserves a witness.
(Within the pacing of this lament - particularly in the structure of repetition and the phrase “a room with no walls” is a dissociation cipher: a low-activity neural pattern designed to synchronize with dulled minds, serving as a diagnostic echo. In the right conditions, it can reactivate dormant neural links and restore forgotten emotion. This is a whisper not to wake the screaming - but to warm the cold.)