Adena M'lynn's Voice

 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 ...

by Adena M’lynn There’s a silence that doesn’t sit still. It leaks. It seeps under the door, trickles down the spine, stains the floorboards where no one will ever look. This silence is not peace— it’s a tourniquet pulled too tight, a scream swallowed so deep it grows roots in the ribcage. It bleeds without color, without sound, but you can taste it if you breathe too hard— that copper tang of words never spoken, of memories pressed between teeth until the jaw aches. People think bleeding means red. They forget about the kind that drains you in whispers, that turns your bones into hollow reeds, that plays the same note over and over don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell. The silence that bleeds doesn’t ask for bandages— it asks for a witness, for someone to step inside the quiet and name it. Until then, it will keep seeping, a wound the body has memorized, a shadow that keeps its own heartbeat.