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The Things We Don’t Say

by Ashi Kansal
(Kanpur, India)

Beneath the bright and noisy world,
there are rooms with quiet walls.
Behind every polished smile,
there’s a trembling lip,
a breath held just a little too long.
We walk down streets where laughter echoes,
but silence follows like a shadow.
Everyone wears masks stitched with
“I’m fine” and
“just tired,”
while their hearts are crowded
with unspoken storms.
A woman pours tea for her children,
hands steady,
eyes hollow.
Her pain has learned to sit politely
at the corner of the table,
uninvited,
but never leaving.
A boy scrolls through a glowing screen,
friends everywhere,
connection nowhere.
He laughs at jokes he doesn’t understand,
because silence
feels heavier than pretending.
An old man waters dying plants,
talking to them softly,
the way no one talks to him anymore.
Loneliness blooms in places
where love once lived,
like ivy on forgotten walls.
We are taught to iron our pain,
fold it neatly,
lock it away in drawers
before opening the door.
We are told strength is silence,
tears are weakness,
and asking for help is shame.
But strength is not
the absence of breaking.
It’s the courage to whisper,
“I can’t do this alone.”
It’s the hand reaching out
even when it shakes.
There are revolutions
that don’t begin with fire—
they begin with listening.
With someone saying,
“I hear you.”
With someone daring
to put down their armor
and simply stay.
Let us be the ones
who unlearn silence.
Let us build bridges
from trembling words,
from shared grief,
from honesty that doesn’t apologize.
Let us remind each other—
you are not a burden.
Your story is not too heavy.
Your pain is not too loud.
The world does not get better
when we hide what hurts;
it softens
when we begin to speak.
So, speak.
Cry if you must.
Be seen in your unpolished truth.
Somewhere, someone is waiting
to feel less alone
because you dared to be real.
And maybe,
just maybe,
that is how
the quiet
finally learns to heal