The Silence You Gave Me
You taught me to whisper
Before I could speak,
To fold my words, tuck them
Underneath the heavy rug
Where dust gathers but never dares
To rise.
Your voice was thunder,
Not a sound to be questioned,
Its echoes swallowed the room,
And in that shadow, I grew
Like a plant beneath thick fog.
My roots were tangled,
Reaching for light
I couldn't see, but felt—
A warmth just beyond
Your grasp.
Each time I tried to speak,
To push air into my lungs,
You were there, a silhouette
Of all I couldn’t say,
Shaping my tongue with the chill
Of your disapproval.
You didn't know
That silence grows
Not just like a wound,
But like a storm held in—
A pressure,
A force.
For years, I carried it,
This weight of words unsaid,
Shaped into a script I memorized:
"Don’t speak too loud."
"Don't think too hard."
"Don’t be too much."
You pressed those lines into my palms
Like braille I couldn't unfeel.
My voice has cracked the sky,
Split the earth you thought was firm.
It spills out of me now,
Fierce and unapologetic,
Every word once swallowed
Now sharp as glass.
I am no longer afraid
Of the reverberation,
No longer ashamed
Of the space I take,
The sound I make.
What was once your rule,
Your doctrine of silence,
Is now just an old book
I choose not to read.
I write my own pages,
In ink too bold to fade.
You cannot mute me anymore.
I have a voice,
And it has wings.
You, the keeper of quiet,
Are now but a distant noise,
A faint hum in the background
Of my symphony.
The silence you gave me
Has bloomed into fire,
And I speak with the flame
You never saw coming.
But what you didn’t know
Is that silence, when bent long enough,
Breaks.
And now, I am not the child
That whispered prayers to invisible gods
For permission to be heard.
I am the thunder.
I am the storm.