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# The Sound of Silence
- URL: https://www.merionwest.com/the-sound-of-silence/
- Published: 2025-05-28T15:12:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-30T17:04:22.000Z
- Description: Will Diggs
- Author: Will Diggs
- Tags: Poetry, Arts

> there’s a such thing 

> as being so sad you can’t 

> even listen to music

  
> as the notion of a note

> shattering the shape of nothing

> beating up against an eardrum

> becomes unbearable this is

  
> not an assault on otolaryngology

> i just think it’s really dumb to ask

  
> if a tree falls in a forest & 

> no one is around to hear it 

> does it make a sound 

> cause the answer is always 

  
> no, sound is the observable thing

> to know a sound is to hear it

> further to recognize it as having

> interrupted the nothing even if

> unidentifiable, which is why

  
> one can say they’ve been silenced

> having spent a lifetime screaming 

> into the void—why your mother

> says your father be talking a lot

> & never saying much of anything

  
> why all a Black man in his car at a

> traffic stop gotta do is go above a 

> whisper & all of a sudden he is yelling 

> at the officer & when told

> to be quiet he

> shoots a look that says *make me*

> officer unholsters steel & says *gladly*

  
> it is then you find that silence

> is not a state

> the absence of sound

> but an act

> the suppression of sound

  
### Will Diggs is a Black writer residing in the Southeastern United States. He is a proud plant father and watcher of PBS documentaries. His work can be found on social media and taped to the walls of his bedroom.