The Weight of Silence

We live in a world

we can leave at any time—

with a whisper,

a twist in the road,

a silent call from the unseen.

And yet,

we measure every word

as if it were currency

in a marketplace

that won’t exist tomorrow.

Why do we cower from truth?

Why do we let it sit in our throats,

unsaid—

like guests uninvited to the dinner table of ambition?

Is it fear?

Fear that a moment of honesty

might strip us of applause,

or close a door

we never truly wanted to walk through?

We swallow our souls

to secure positions

in futures

that may never come.

And call it wisdom.

Call it strategy.

Call it networking.

But it’s fear—

dressed in expensive language.

How strange:

To fear the loss of imagined power

more than the erosion of our real selves.

We act like this world is permanent.

As if each breath is under our control.

As if we are the masters of time—

not its brief passengers.

Tell me,

what does it profit a person

to gain the whole world

but silence their truth

into extinction?

Speak, even if your voice shakes.

Even if the room turns cold.

Even if the cost

is being misunderstood.

Because one day,

when we are no longer here

and our titles are dust,

what remains

will be the words we dared to speak—

and the hearts we set free

because of them.

So let truth flow

like a river that fears no drought.

Let your tongue be light,

your soul unchained.

For the truth,

in the end,

is the only thing

we ever really own.

by Stranger Lee