A Voice Found in Silence

By Rabhya Patil

“Open your mouth and allow the words to walk through the red carpet of your tongue, nothing to block.”

I can’t. 

If I express through bunches of letters that must be neat, they will twist into threaded knots that cannot be undone by my thoughts, so bittersweet. 

I’m afraid the ghost eyes will see right through my struggling smile and notice the corners of my mouth twitching from stress covered with tile. 

I’m afraid my mind will be read out loud, but it will all be loose wires no one but I could braid back into my skull. 

My fingers will fight like immature children rather than behave and follow the lead of my broken tone, and cracked sounds escaping my throat will bruise the unhealed silence.

“You have two ears and one mouth for a reason, so listen more than you speak.” I keep this buried in the nerve between my brain and heart so deep. 

I must have hit my head when the man whose words stood upright said my fear of speaking in front of a crowd was not due to anxiety from gazes that looked upon me, so clear. 

I was too scared for my voice to be heard because all my life I have been told to stay silent and listen.

Rabhya Patil is a 16 year old high school student in Northern California. She loves to write to explore emotion, intensity in expression, identity, and diverse experiences that she thinks is worth sharing. This is her first publication.