Nobody counts silence as something you did.
The meeting ends and you tally what you said. The good line. The bit you should have left out.
The stretches where you just sat with it don't make the list.
But quiet is not the gap between the work.
It takes something to hold.
Your mouth wants to fill it. Your hands want a job.
Staying still while the room waits is effort that leaves no record.
That effort is the whole thing.
The steadiness you keep wanting more of gets built in the minutes you marked as blank.
You have been keeping score wrong.
Half your strength never made the tally.
