Silence is a kind of violence, silence is a kind of wildness. How it felt: extraordinary, primal, strange. Out of curiosity I asked how she felt about you: enthralled. Which I can understand. There's something in the way you listen that's addictive to all of us who love to talk. I know that I'm supposed to push / knock / ask tentatively / put you at ease / pitch you on how lovable, sweet, sharp I am, but one does get sick of pushing. A woman should be able to throw a punch, scale a wall, recite The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, send an email for every occasion, dress up, dress down in the Allbirds-and-Uniqlo-tech-death uniform, give a speech, have a manic episode, have a depressive episode, flirt with psychosis, kiss a boy, kiss a girl, set parameter values for a neural net, break up with a boyfriend five times in three weeks, sketch a nude figure model in perfect anatomical detail, dutch braid her hair one-handed and apply sunscreen with the other without breaking a sweat. A woman should value the life of the mind while remembering that reading Hannah Arendt doesn't excuse her from her duties as a good animal or a good capitalist. When all duties are done a woman might prefer a warm and complete silence, a silence like a scalding bathtub lined with Aesop candles, a silence like wet moss and ash trailing from the sky. There's something deeply reckless about talking even though we all do it without thought. Talk even for a moment and someone will become convinced you love them madly. Talk and you will be accused of being, in turn, inappropriate, bland, hilarious, clever, trite, dumb--ever open, open, open for interpretation. I think about quiet, how it haunts the den of my dreams like a fox cub. Promised and never consummated, an envelope received but never opened.
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