“Every ripple begins in silence, yet carries further than the eye can see.”

The cove had grown quieter, though the memory of voices lingered like the aftertaste of summer. A single splash broke the surface, spreading circles out into the stillness, carrying the night’s echoes further than intended. In the distance, laughter rose and fell, as if carried on the wind from a gathering already dissolving into memory. The water revealed what the voices tried to hide, how quickly joy could ripple into unease, how quickly the world reminded you that nothing was ever just surface.

The circles widened, crossing into one another, colliding, breaking apart, reforming. That is how whispers move. That is how truths travel.

Circles widened, one after another,

meeting in silence where voices falter.

Every echo pressed into the cove,

carrying secrets the night could not hold.

What begins in play does not stay contained,

even still water remembers the sounds.

-Kerri-Elizabeth-

But when the next circle broke the surface, it wasn’t laughter that carried with it, it was something else, something no one wanted spoken aloud.