what silence made me.

mum, do you remember?

when i asked you for something,

anything—

help with my homework,

a hand to tie my shoes,

or just to untangle the mess of my heart?

do you remember when you taught me

that silence was safety?

when your words were like walls,

cold and unforgiving,

and love was a thing i had to wait for

but never saw?

you taught me to shrink,

to fold into myself,

to be quiet,

a whisper in a world that never paused long enough

to hear my voice.

did you know that every word you didn’t say

built a prison inside me,

where my needs rotted like forgotten fruit,

untouched, unseen?

dad, do you remember?

when i begged you for toys, for affection,

a moment where your eyes would meet mine,

not cold and distant,

but warm, like something that could wrap itself around me

and make me feel like i mattered?

remember when you taught me

to be timid, to let myself disappear

so you wouldn’t have to notice me?

to be submissive to the absence of your love,

and easy in the silence you left me to drown in?

you taught me that love was something to fear,

something that could slip away when i reached for it,

like water that escapes through broken hands.

and so i let it.

letting love slip through my fingers

because i learned to stay small,

to never ask for more than what was already gone.

the silence is now my friend. a foe i used to bear,

the absence of a voice that never knew how to shout,

a shadow that hides in corners,

waiting for light that never finds me.

i turn love away,

like a door that has been locked so long

the hinges have rusted and forgotten how to open.

i am timid in the face of affection,

afraid to take what i’ve never been taught

to receive.

i am submissive to the emptiness,

bowing to the nothing that feels familiar,

and easy to walk away from

because i learned that staying means

being disappointed.

i reject love before it can touch me,

before it can ask me to speak,

to make myself known.

i turn it into a ghost,

something that haunts me,

but i don’t know how to welcome it.

i fear its warmth,

because my heart never knew it,

screeching screams to blaring shouts,

you did it all,

i was silent.