About 2 weeks ago, just I was getting immersed in Poetry Boot Camp 2021, I came across the following quote on Twitter: “What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?“, Audre Lorde. It was used to encourage the ‘silent majority’ to voice their opinions about a contentious issue, but it got me thinking about survival silence.
Silence
My silence did not protect me
In the conventional sense
My silence did not stop
Another’s intent.
My silence bought me time
It enabled me to survive
My silence, though a burden,
Got me to the other side.
I did not become the tyranny
That I experienced
My silence did not make
Me an accomplice
In my own torment.
My silence has not weakened me
In fact, it has made my voice strong
And I use it now to name the wrongs.
I do not walk in silence,
A kind of head down obedience,
My eyes are alight with defiance
My soul burns like a furnace
So yes, my silence did not protect me
But, back then, neither did my words
Angele Toomey Poetry 