unmedicated truth

I laid awake last night

for the first time in I don't know when;

drugs aren't kicking in --

and the silence had a pulse,

a slow, unmedicated truth

pressing against my ribs.

No softened edges,

no drifting off mid-thought --

just the weight of being here

without a buffer.

I counted breaths

like they might carry me somewhere

gentler,

but they only brought me back

again and again

to the same unfiltered hour.

And somewhere in that unrest

was a quiet, unfamiliar thing --

not peace,

but something close to honest.