The word hides in me like a bone that won't surface

I keep dreaming I'm standing in a room full of people who are all waiting for me to say one word — the right one — and I open my mouth and out comes the sound of a tuning fork, or a page turning, or nothing at all. Last night the silence had a shape, like a stone I could almost swallow. I woke up more tired than when I went to bed, certain the word is in the notebook somewhere, writing itself between my lines when I'm not looking.