Everyone always said she was too quiet.
In the office, during meetings, in the hallway — silence wrapped around her like an old friend. She never meant to be distant. But somehow, people thought silence meant weakness, or worse, ignorance.
“Speak up,” they’d say, “Don’t you have any questions? It’s important for your work.”
She wanted to scream, I do have questions!
But once, when she did — her voice was met with sharp glances, cold tones, and accusations.
“Why are you challenging everything?”
“Just do what you’re told.”
So she learned to hold her questions.
Swallowed them, one by one.
Until they became heavy stones resting quietly in her chest.
And now, when she stayed silent — they turned around and said,
“Why don’t you ask anything? You don’t seem like you’re learning.”
She was caught between two walls.
Speak, and be wrong.
Stay silent, and be invisible.
No one saw the war happening quietly inside her.
Every word she wanted to say — rehearsed, rewritten in her mind a hundred times — was buried beneath fear of misunderstanding.
Every question held back — not from apathy, but from the echo of old wounds.
She wasn't lazy.
She wasn’t careless.
She simply wanted peace.
And yet, in a world that rewards noise, her quiet strength was mistaken for absence.
But still, she stayed.
Still, she worked.
Still, she tried.
Because deep inside her silence lived a voice — soft, steady, and aching to be understood.
Not for praise.
Not for recognition.
But just... to be heard.
One day, maybe, someone would listen not to her words — but to her silence.
And realize,
The quiet ones were never empty.
They were simply full... of everything unspoken.
