“An abstract composition of silence and memory—curtains, fading mist, scattered words, and a figure dissolving into shadows.”
Childhood
I never cried. I never had to. Silence was enough—like curtains drawn across days that demanded feeling but never provoked it. I feel people expect children to cry, that it proves they are alive. I lived without that proof, and that is why I became invisible.
I watched the world through scratches on glass. People laughed, cried, clapped—as if it all had meaning. Not me. I sat with my hands on my knees and waited. For what? For the moment when pain would force me to admit I belonged to it. That I was its child even before I speak.
It’s strange how much can be hidden in silence. You can love deeply without telling anyone. You can lose so much without ever owning anything. I wanted… no, I didn’t want. Wanting is dangerous. It teaches you to hope, and hope is the greatest deceiver.
Sometimes I imagine I am different, that I scream, run, laugh until my stomach hurts. But even in those imaginings, I return to the corner. Like a dog that knows it’s raining outside and that storms don’t last forever, I still tremble. I tremble because I have already been soaked once.
One day I will know how to cry. Not before people. Only in words. Only by writing a line and then erasing it. But tears are not water; they are traces. And I am beginning to understand that even without me, unspoken things remain, and that silence has memory.
Adolescence
I discovered that irony is like armor. It doesn’t let the rain through. People laugh when you use it, as if they don’t realize it’s just another form of despair. Behind every sarcastic sentence, I hide… not from them, but from myself.
No one notices that my jokes don’t aim to amuse. They aim to repel, to drive away those who want to come closer. I love words, but I hate conversations. They are too fast, too shallow. Only when I write do I feel no pressure. Only then am I willing to be vulnerable.
My sentences are places I escape to. Each one is a small house with an empty table. There, I can seat pain and finally tell it that I see it. I feel it. We have long been part of the same body.
But why does no one read them? I wanted it that way. It is too intimate. Words are not weakness; they are the whisper of the soul. And I would rather whisper than shout.
First Love
She touched me. Not for the first time on my skin, but for the first time in the space where my shadows live. She was gentle… too much. I feared my silence would strangle her. That it would swallow her smile before anyone else return it.
I never told her what she awakened in me. I only watched. And wrote. I was like a river that doesn’t want to flow, but still floods.
There were moments when we were silent together. Those were the most beautiful. In that silence, we were the same: equally fragile, equally connected to something that can’t be explained. And then she left, not tragically, but quietly, like mist that decides to fade in the morning without apology.
Since then, I touch with caution—not for myself, but for what a touch will awaken in someone else. The more you love, the less you want to wound. And I loved heavily, quietly. So much that when I close my eyes, I hear her breath as the echo of my inadequacy.
Adulthood
Every morning, I put on the same suit. Not of fabric, but of manners: politeness, a smile, an answer that offends no one. Everything fits exactly, but never comfortably.
I stopped asking who I am. I stopped looking in mirrors. Not because I am afraid, but because there is nothing to find. What used to be inside is now scattered across calendars. In meetings, in notes, in automatic “how are you?”s.
When I am alone, I don’t think about myself. I think about how much of me is just reaction. How much of my face is a learned shape. How long I will keep pretending that life can be lived without true connection.
People say adulthood is calm. But I think it is postponement. Postponement of pain that no longer has a name, because it has become a state. You find yourself in a state where you can’t cry. It’s not because there is no reason. It’s because tears would have to pass through layers that have already hardened.
I write less. It’s not because I have nothing to say. It’s because paper is cleaner than I am, and it doesn’t deserve my resignation.
Older Man
I sit where I once sat. The corner of the room hasn’t changed; only I have. I no longer need to pretend that pain isn’t part of my steps. I no longer wait for someone to call me outside. I’ve learned that some returns are not about others but about oneself.
Silence no longer hurts. It is like an old friend who speaks little but always listens. I spent my life searching for words that would free me. Today, I realize that some sentences are meant to stay unspoken.
I don’t need a mirror. I know my shape from memory. And it is no longer the image of an incomplete man, but a map of scars that tell stories. A person can be broken and still whole, can be quiet and still eloquent.
I leaf through old notes. Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I catch my breath. But I know I wrote it all because I wanted to be heard—not by the world, but by myself. And today… today I hear every word I once scratched quietly into the margins.
I will never love fully again. I will never seek a touch that repairs everything. But I will write. I will sit quietly in the corner. I will not be alone. My words have become the company I deserve.
And silence? Silence is now home.
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