It’s strange seeing something you wrote in the dark finally step into the light.

Teeth in the Silence is officially out in the world, and I’ve been sitting here trying to find the right words for what that means - for me, and maybe for you too.

This book began as a way to survive myself. I wasn’t trying to write a collection or chase publication. I was just trying to make sense of the echoes; the things that stayed long after they should have left. Each piece came from somewhere quiet and honest, from moments when silence felt heavier than sound.

It’s strange to share something so personal, knowing it might live in the hands of people who see their own reflection in it. That’s what I hope for, though. I didn’t write this book to tell anyone how to heal. I wrote it to show that surviving isn’t pretty, but it’s still survival.

If you’ve found your way here, maybe you understand that kind of quiet. Maybe you’ve lived in it. And if you have, I hope these pages remind you that you’re not alone - that the dark doesn’t always get the last word.

Thank you for being here at the beginning of whatever this next chapter becomes.

 The silence has teeth, yes. But so do we.

-Robert Dutch