The Ringing Beyond The Self

By Subhangi Maity

I rise without moving. I slip from the body's edge into a space where identity fades, not death, but expansion. 

The sound is always there. It’s not imagined or external. It is a high, constant note that does not interrupt silence, but becomes it. They call it tinnitus. I call it the universe remembering me. 

Beyond bones and breath, there is no center. There is only awareness stretched thin across the fabric of what is. It’s a boundaryless union with stars that do not care, yet sing in their indifference. 

I feel no shape, yet I am vast. I am the question and the pause after it. I am the thought that cannot be spoken because words belong to bodies. 

Here, the ringing is not a flaw, but a frequency. It is the residue of being tuned too finely to existence. 

And when I return, I do not come back whole. A part of me remains where time folds and the self no longer needs a name.

By Subhangi Maity