“Rust in the Silence”

 In class Thursday evening, we explored how silence can be both a comfort and a cage. We talked about how spoken word gives us permission to let the quiet places inside us speak out loud. From that discussion, this piece was born. It’s called “Rust in the Silence”— a reminder that even the words we bury, the truths we try to swallow, will find their way out. And when they do, they don’t come out polished. 

One of my greatest inspirations, Maya Angelou, once wrote of a caged bird that sings—not because it is free, but because song is the only way the spirit can break beyond the bars.

This piece was born from that same truth. My silence was not golden; it was rust—corroding, pressing, weighing me down until my voice clawed its way back. Rust in the Silence is a reminder that even the words we bury, the truths we try to swallow, will find their way out. And when they do, they don’t come out polished—they come out jagged, trembling, and real.

“Rust in the Silence”

They told me silence was golden—

but mine was rust,

corroding the edges of my spirit

until my voice clawed its way back into the room.

I had swallowed whole oceans of words,

thinking stillness would make me holy,

thinking quiet would make me loved.

But silence is heavy when it is forced,

a cage disguised as peace.

My tongue ached from being chained,

my thoughts bruised from pressing

against the inside of my skull.

Every unspoken truth

became another brick in a wall

I never meant to build.

So I cracked—

not like porcelain breaking pretty,

but like thunder,

raw and unapologetic.

My voice spilled out jagged,

trembling,

yet alive.

And in that eruption,

I remembered,

rust can still gleam when it meets the light.

Silence may have shaped me,

but it will not define me.

I am not the cage—

I am the song

that breaks it open.