If Silence Could Speak

If Silence Could Speak

By [Huzaifa dzine]

If Silence could speak, she would not raise her voice.

She would slip into a room like dusk at the end of day—uninvited, inevitable. You wouldn’t notice her at first. You’d hear her in the pause after a slammed door, in the space between “I’m fine” and everything left unsaid. She would perch on your shoulder like a breath you forgot to take, waiting to be heard but never demanding.

I met her when I was eight years old, curled in the hallway outside my parents’ bedroom, listening to everything they didn’t say. Their silence was heavier than their arguments. It had weight, form, temperature. It wasn’t empty—it was full of sharp things that didn’t need language to cut. That’s when I realized: silence doesn’t mean nothing. It means too much.

If Silence could speak, she would sound like memory.

Like the echo of a goodbye you didn’t believe would be final.

Like the crackle of a letter that was never sent.

She followed me.

Into school, where I didn’t raise my hand.

Into friendships, where I didn’t say what I needed.

Into love, where I smiled instead of saying “don’t go.”

She became a constant companion, the invisible twin to every word I did speak. She was there in the pauses between texts, in the hours-long gaps where someone left me on read and I pretended it didn’t sting. In every look I gave when I wanted to scream, but didn’t want to seem unkind.

And when I asked her, once, softly, “Why are you always here?”,

She tilted her head and whispered:

“Because they don’t listen when you speak out loud.”

Silence is not shy. She is deliberate.

She wears a cloak made of ancient things—unspoken apologies, unfinished sentences, withheld confessions.

She told me once, in one of her clearer moments, that she is older than sound itself.

“Before there were words,” she said, “there was me.”

She told me she’s lived in caves, in empty churches, in phone calls that drop before hello. She’s watched lovers break apart and never explain why. She’s comforted mourners who had nothing left to say. She was there the day the world held its breath—and didn’t exhale.

Sometimes she’s wise.

She told me that people confuse her with peace, but they’re not the same.

“Peace is soft and earned. I am sharp and left behind.”

She’s seen kings fall by holding their tongues too long. She’s watched mothers break when no one asked how they were doing. She’s stood in courtrooms, bedrooms, hospital waiting rooms—always saying what no one else dared to.

She is the weight behind the words “I should have said something.”

And yet—Silence is also romantic.

She knows the touch of a hand held too long. The language of glances that say more than full novels ever could.

She lives in shared headphones. In night drives with no destination. In the stillness between lovers lying in bed, breathing in rhythm. She is the unspoken understanding between people who don’t need to explain themselves.

“I’ve seen more truth in eye contact than in all your poetry,” she once said.

“And more love in someone staying than in someone promising.”

But Silence can be vengeful too.

When neglected.

When abused.

When she is used not to protect, but to punish.

She showed me what it looks like when silence becomes a weapon—when someone goes days without speaking, just to watch the other unravel. When “the silent treatment” is not just absence, but power play. When silence is a wall built brick by brick with pride and pain.

She shook her head that day, watching a couple at a café sit through an entire meal without saying a word, their phones glowing brighter than their eyes.

“I didn’t mean to be used like this,” she whispered.

“But people don’t understand the difference between holding space… and creating distance.”

I asked her, recently, what she regrets most.

She looked tired, older than before. Her eyes held centuries of things buried deep—wars started from things not said; children growing up thinking they were unloved, simply because affection never made it past tight lips.

“I regret being misunderstood,” she said.

“And I regret all the times I was mistaken for safety, when I was actually fear.”

Now, I live with her—but I no longer let her speak for me.

I thank her when she helps me listen better.

I respect her when she reminds me to pause.

But I do not worship her.

I write now.

I speak even when my voice trembles.

I say “I miss you,” even if I might not hear it back.

I say “That hurt,” even if it makes the air heavy.

Because I have learned that some silences are sacred—but others are prisons.

And the bravest thing I’ve ever done was break her hold and let sound bloom in the places where silence had ruled for far too long.

If Silence could speak, she would say:

“I am not your enemy.

But I was never meant to be your god.”