The Whisper

I’ve been hearing my name more often.

Not out loud—just something beneath thought, like a soft pressure. The whisper’s been there longer than I realized. Not a voice. Not a message. Just… presence. Faint, but steady. Like your name being spoken in a room you can’t quite reach.

I didn’t notice it at first. Most people don’t. The world’s too loud, and we fill it even louder with our own noise. But the whisper—quiet, patient—doesn’t mind. It waits.

And now it’s closer.

It doesn’t scare me. I thought it might. But fear never found much of a foothold in me—not for this. There’s no one left to say goodbye to, and nothing left unfinished. Or if there is, maybe it was always meant to remain that way.

The whisper hums between thoughts like breath between words. Sometimes louder, sometimes barely there. But always present. Like a clock ticking just outside the room.

I used to wear solitude like armor. People were noise—unpredictable, insistent, exhausting. I preferred the stillness. The clarity of owing nothing to anyone. I told myself that was wisdom.

Maybe it was.

But pride and wisdom look alike from the inside. I said I’d chosen the higher road. That needing nothing made me stronger. Truth is, I feared the mess of being seen. Of needing someone—and not knowing how to hold it without breaking.

The whisper was there even then. Quieter. Like the sound of your own blood if you sit still long enough. I didn’t listen. I thought I had time. And I was busy being unbothered. Safe in my silence.

But now the silence has changed.

It’s heavy, but not cruel. It sits beside me the way old memories do—familiar and still. And in that stillness, the whisper rises again. Not loud. Not urgent. Just… closer.

Sometimes, in it, I feel the ghost of what others once saw in me. Not their words—I don’t remember those—but the feelings they left behind. Moments when someone thought I mattered. That I could become something more.

I didn’t believe them.

So I let them pass. I stayed—alone, unshaken, sure.

But now the whisper curls around those echoes. Gently. Reminding me of what I turned away from. It doesn’t ache. It just lingers. Like dust in a beam of light.

The whisper knows.

And I think I’ve always known too.

It’s not louder now, just undeniable. A breath in the chest of every room. A thinning between now and then. I don’t resist it.

I used to imagine the end would be a final beat. Something clean. But that’s not what this is.

This is quieter.

A note held just long enough to feel its end.

The whisper isn’t something I need to answer. It’s what I’ve always been moving toward.

And now, it isn’t outside me.

It is me.

Not fear. Not grief.

Just stillness.

And this time, I’m listening.