Silence

**WRITTEN JANUARY 2010**

It's the second after an event where your reaction surfaces and your emotions bubble. It's in that instantaneous silent second where future opinions are created and stereotypes live. It's where expectations gather and you categorize your feelings. Whether the moment be as big as watching the towers fall or as small as the second after you say goodbye, it's within the seconds after the moment where you assess and address what has happened. Sometimes it is within the crinkling of your cheeks, gathering together to form a sly smile. Sometimes it is within the furrowing of your eyebrow and the gathering of your forehead, perturbed by the event. It is also with these miniscule reactions that people judge you.

Often people read too much into the smallest twitch or accidental wiggle. Reactions building on reactions building on reactions yet no one truly knows the catalyst that formed the first reaction. This is the moment where miscommunication lies. Not in what is said, but the silence. In the reactions that we read into. I watch you brush your hair back and identify a widespread emotion for what may have been an itch. Is it boredom? Is it insecurity? Is it longing? It was just an itch, sweetheart, and here you are off on an internal tangent of possibilities. I catch myself caught up in the seconds after the real moment and I'm left longing and lingering on what just happened. And my brow furrows in thought as a co-worker approaches. No, I don't hate you. I'm just thinking.