Silence, I am told, can be useful. As a way to keep the peace, to
insure that the cat stays in the bag and does not cause a
disturbance.
Silence, I hear, has its place. It can hold things together
like marriages and friendships and abusive structures. It works
a charm at keeping people in
their place.
We don’t necessarily need to agree on silence in order to give it power.
It’s easy to learn not to say things.
to learn not to ask for things
to go without, accept this as normal
and keep on walking.
It’s not so much that we make friends with silence. Rather
we assume its presence
and make it the status quo without thinking.
Silence is great for holding things at bay
keeping stuff locked away out of reach and earshot.
Silence provides the perfect masquerade
to dress our behaviors up
as norms.
There’s a reason we say ‘break’ the silence
because it requires force
and someone is likely to be unhappy as a result.
If you happen to be holding a silence
your own or someone else’s, be careful
how tightly you grip it
I’m afraid it will break and you’ll have a mess you didn’t want but couldn’t avoid and now are to blame and the silence will get you in trouble because it’s broken and everyone knows what the silence was protecting.
Silence is golden
always in someone else’s treasure chest. They earn the
interest
while we pay fees and taxes.
Silence will make us poor before we realize everything we gave up
in the name of
saving grace.
edifiedlistener 
This is incredibly beautiful, I have read it twice. It speaks to so much to the present for me. Thank you for breaking the silence on silence. 🙂
I appreciate your kind words. Glad you found meaning in mine.
I loooooove this post and silence has been on my mind so much lately (as has speaking up and speaking out). Kelsey sent me the link to your post because she knew I needed to read this. It says everything. Silence says everything too.
Thanks so much for responding. I’m glad it resonated.