#ifyoucantsayitwriteit — Public Fediverse posts

What I Choose to Keep

I have known silence
in many forms.

As something that speaks.
As something that breaks.
As something passed down
without asking.

I have worn it
like a second skin—
soft in places,
tight in others.

I have seen it
hold love back,
turn warmth cold,
make strangers feel like home.

I have seen it
make monsters
out of men
who were only powerful
because no one spoke.

And still—
it stayed with me.

Not always as fear.
Not always as harm.

Sometimes
as breath.

As the space
before a truth
finds its courage.

As the quiet
that lets me hear myself
without interruption.

So I will not abandon it.

But I will not carry it
the way I was taught.

I will not let it
speak for me
when I have words.

I will not let it
protect what harms me.

I will not let it
be mistaken
for my consent.

I will choose it
only when it is mine.

Only when it heals.
Only when it holds.
Only when it listens
without taking.

And when I speak—

I will not whisper.

FLUENT IN SILENCE

Silence has many forms.
Sometimes it protects.
Sometimes it connects.
Sometimes it carries what we are not ready to say.
And sometimes -it becomes the very thing that harms us.
This collection explores silence not as absence but as language.
A language learned, inherited, shared and,at times reclaimed.
These poems are not just about what is unsaid, but about what silence holds-love,fear, memory, power and choice.
-Nandipha Chibwe