SLC-S31/W3-“Creative Interpretation| “Silence Speaks”

Silence Speaks
I buried my voice behind the kitchen wall
Where smoke from damp firewood writes history
On blackened pots that have seen more hunger
Than celebration.
Mother doesn’t speak when the soup is thin
She stirs it like she’s negotiating with God.
The spoon scrapes the pot,
And that scraping…
That is our family anthem.
In the morning, the compound wakes in whispers:
A broom dragging yesterday’s worries into a pile,
Roosters announcing hope they don’t understand,
And fathers tying silence around their waists
Like wrappers of pride.
I once asked why we don’t say things out loud.
Grandmother laughed without opening her mouth.
Her eyes said:
“Words are expensive.
Silence feeds longer.”
So I learned to speak in other ways
In how I linger before eating,
In how I watch the sky like it owes me answers,
In how I swallow anger
Until it becomes a second heartbeat.
In Akwa Ibom State,
Silence is not empty
It is crowded.
It carries unpaid school fees,
Broken promises wrapped in Sunday clothes,
And dreams that sit quietly
Because they’ve learned patience is survival.
My friend stopped talking the day
His brother didn’t come back.
No tears.
No noise.
Just a chair he never moved again.
That chair speaks.
At night, when generators cough into darkness
And mosquitoes write their own love songs,
I hear it—
The loudest thing in my life:
Everything we never said.

In my piece, silence is not just about keeping quiet or the absence of sound; it is shown as a strong way of communicating feelings that people find difficult to express with words. The message I am passing is that silence can carry deep emotions like pain, love, struggle, and hope without anyone speaking. In many real-life situations, especially in places like Akwa Ibom State, people go through a lot but do not always talk about it openly. Instead, they show it through their actions.
For example, a mother may not say, “We are struggling,” but when she adds more water to soup so it can go round everyone, that silence is speaking. A father may not say, “I am tired or worried,” but the way he sits quietly thinking after a long day shows that something is heavy on his mind. These quiet actions communicate more than words sometimes can. So, the message in my poem is that silence is not weakness. It is a way people survive, endure, and protect each other. Silence becomes a hidden language that only those who pay attention can truly understand.

In my interpretation, different people are silent, and each of them has their own reason for being quiet. First is the mother. She is silent because she does not want to worry her children. Even when things are hard, she chooses to stay strong and handle the situation quietly. Her silence is her way of showing love and responsibility.
The father is also silent. In many African homes, men are expected to be strong and not show weakness. Because of this, he keeps his struggles to himself. He may be thinking about money, family needs, and responsibilities, but he does not talk about them. His silence is not because he has nothing to say, but because he feels he must carry everything alone.
Then there is the youth, someone like me or you growing up in Abak. The youth is silent because they are still trying to understand life. Sometimes they have big dreams but do not know how to express them. Sometimes they are facing challenges but feel nobody will understand. So instead of talking, they keep quiet or express themselves through music, writing, or deep thinking.
There is also the silence of loss when someone is no longer there. For example, an empty chair in a house can be very quiet, but it reminds everyone of the person who used to sit there. That kind of silence speaks of pain and memories that words cannot explain.
So, people are silent not because they are empty, but because they are full of thoughts and emotions that are either too heavy, too risky, or too difficult to say out loud.