Noise and Comfort

When I get lost in wandering, I know the best direction to put your chips in is always up
because that's where you get that view
and can finally see the road you lost however long ago

But just one  time I reached the top, and for all I could see, there was nothing.
From that point of earth I had thousands of miles of land spreading out around me like spilled milk, but all I could see was empty space.
It was all there, but it was all elsewhere simultaneously.
And it was quiet
I mean the purest, absolute quiet.
Something I had honestly forgotten about,
usually feeling compelled to fill it up with sounds that exist only to avoid instances like this,

The instances where any kind of distraction gets sucked into the vaccuum of ancient void
and internal soliloquy takes its place with a fury like an unaging caged beast in a dusty closet of the deepest mental resting
suddenly freed
and exploding into it's renewed world with a once repressed, molten passion
for exploring all the dark corners of the roomy space it was removed from for reasons that can no longer be remembered in full.

Turning to the noise just pulls on some instinctively yearning thread
a form of pleasantry and comfort, I can only guess
it always fills gaps whenever they may decide to show up
the noise is always there
thumping,
or ringing,
or buzzing
or humming,
or just vibrating to keep from letting the silence settle on your shoulders
but I just forget why that should be preferable

and then every so often, one of these instances leak out
through some crack in the most well laid defences
and the noise doesn't quite make it to the scene of the crime
to stop the robber from getting off with the goods
and I'm reminded of what the world sounds like when the noise isn't around to crowd the scenery with anything it can do to provide comfort from our imaginary fear
of empty space
that now that I think about it
I never had in the first place

For the first time in longer than I'd care to share, I could hear myself think
it was a voice I'd forgotten all the delicate features of
like a deceased love one you didnt hold on to many pictures of for personal reasons
or a pen pal that moved and didn't give you their revised address
and it spoke in full sentences
and held delightful conversations that you would never mind going on all night
and it just felt right in a way that you sometimes forget can happen

then I sat,
and I listened, carefully soaking in every extremity  of it's articulately wordless nature
and having forgotten what I had reached the top to do in the first place, I remained where I was
for a time that was left completely unsupervised
until eventually the sun arose for the first time in days,
and the nothing that was in front of me suddenly filled back up, with every piece back in it's proper place
and I felt inexpliably nourished, well fed, and absolutely enriched for reasons I didnt bother to seek out.
I felt that I could again continue to wander, but I was no longer really interested in looking for the road.
I just kept piling my chips on moving upwards.
And it hasn't failed me yet.