Borrowed Silence

 So this poem, I am very proud of and I want to know what you think? 

💙⃝🦋 Borrowed Silence 💙⃝🦋

Everywhere I go, I carry a silence that isn't mine. 

It sits on me like a borrowed coat - 

too heavy on the shoulders, 

sleeves that swallow my arms, 

lined with the faint smell of someone else's grief. 

Obvious it wasn't mine to keep. 

It was given without ceremony: 

a glance that lingered, 

a pause that said: take this. 

I folded it close, 

hid it like a letter I was never meant to open. 

That type of silence is different from peace. 

Peace has wings, light, freedom. 

This silence has stones; ragged bones and rocks. 

It sinks and drowns me when I speak, 

it tightens at the collar when I laugh, 

reminding me how easily a voice can be covered. 

So, I learned how to live around it, 

how to tilt my ribs so it wouldn't bruise me as badly. 

How to walk without shrugging it off quickly. 

How to smile without shaking the echoes loose, 

or how to keep still so it wouldn't slip so easily. 

And most of all how to answer softly when the world asked for sound. 

That type of unspoken silence, settles its name into your mouth, 

teaches the tongue new hesitations, 

makes even the smallest of truths ask for permission. 

Yet when you wear something for far too long, 

it eventually begins to feel like yours. 

The lining warms.

The weight settles. 

Even the very silence learns the shape of your body. 

But some nights, I try to return it. 

I stand at the edge of the very memory

and call out to whoever dropped it. 

There was no one waiting. 

Only the echo of what was left behind. 

A lingering shadow. 

So I begin, slowly

to unfasten it. 

One button at a time.

Then another. 

Air reaches my throat and I feel my shoulders lift. 

I slid the coat from my arms 

and leave it where it was taken. 

Not discarded, 

but released. 

If I keep my silence now, let it be chosen. 

Let it be quiet after rain, 

the breath before singing, 

the pause that belongs to me - 

not borrowed, not owned

but mine.