“Every sound carries further than we imagine, weaving through silence, returning as echoes that remind us nothing is ever truly gone.

The cove was louder than my thoughts,

laughter bending against the stillness,

pressing its way into my chest.

I wanted to disappear,

to quiet what I could not control.

But vanishing has never healed a wound,

it only hides it deeper.

So I stayed.

I breathed.

I noticed.

The ache was not only mine.

It was the echo of every person

who has stood just outside the circle,

close enough to hear joy

but too far to be held in it.

The world is small,

and what we say travels farther than we know.

Words can cross water,

build bridges,

or set fires.

Today I chose to be still,

to let the echo pass through me

without becoming me.

~Kerri-Elizabeth ~

“When the next echo returns, will it stir the stillness like a storm’s edge, or settle in the silence as a truth softened by time?”