The Sound Beneath My Silence

The silence I was taught to keep was not my true nature it was survival.
A balm pressed between generations.
A vow made with eyes lowered and voice tucked behind teeth.

But silence has weight.
It gathers in the bones,
becomes ache in the chest,
a lump in the throat that waits for my permission to become song.

I was not born to carry secrets like chains.
I was born to alchemize them into incantations.
To speak not only for myself but
for all the ones who were never allowed to.

Let the silence end where your breath begins.
Let your voice be the offering.

You are the unraveling.
You are the retelling.
You are the sound the ancestors never got to make.

Speak.