My World Without Sound

I live my life in a kind of isolation, a nothingness. I see things
that aren't meant to be seen. My fifth sense has been snatched
away from me, without warning, without preamble. Growing up
all my life with sound, children laughing, birds singing, waves crashing
along the shoreline, only for it all to be taken away. I am lost,
I grieve as if I have witnessed someone close to me slowly perish. For years, I
had no control, over myself, over my life, over anything. I was simply forced
to watch while everything I knew, everything I'd once taken for granted, was taken away.
It is my world without sound. I "hear" things that aren't really there, memories,
recollections of how it should be, but isn't. As I drive in a car, I see a
neighborhood boy bouncing a basketball. I hear the thump-thump as the
ball smacks against the concrete, but it is not really there. When the dog barks,
I "hear" it, but it is not really there. When a child laughs, so innocent, I "hear" it,
but it is not really there. My world without sound. I would do anything, give anything
to hear the waves crash along the shore again.