Silent Battles

You walk into rooms like sunlight never left Silent Beadsyour skin.
People smile when they see you,
because you’ve learned how to smile first.
But no one sees the nights your heart
folds into itself like paper,
or the way your hands tremble
when no one is watching.
You laugh, but it’s not always joy.
Sometimes, it’s an armour.

You carry stories no one asks to hear.
And that silence?
it becomes a house you live in.
Brick by brick,
you’ve built walls from words
you were too tired to speak.
You nod when asked if you’re okay,
because saying “no”
would take too much explaining.

There are days you wake up
already exhausted from the weight
of being strong for everyone else.
The mirror doesn’t lie,
but even it cannot show
the wars inside your chest,
wars without a battlefield,
without a finish line,
only echoes.

You sit at tables
and laugh at jokes you barely hear.
They don’t notice
how your eyes glaze
when memories press too hard.
Grief comes to visit in whispers,
regret lingers in doorways.
But you hold yourself together
like glass pretending not to crack.

You have mastered
the art of hiding bruises
that no one gave you with their hands.
Pain like that wears no color,
leaves no scars people understand.
Still, you walk and walk,
with a head high and a voice calm,
as if peace were something
you found and not something you’re chasing.

You look at others
and wonder how they do it,
how they breathe so easily.
But they might be wondering the same.
Silent battles don’t make noise.
They don’t bleed on the outside.
They just sit in the soul,
quiet and hungry,
waiting to be seen.

So I implore you to listen more gently.
I plead with you to ask without assuming.
Offer kindness, not solutions.
Because you are not the only one
hiding behind a working smile.
The strongest people you know
might be breaking the slowest.
And maybe, just maybe,
your empathy is someone’s eternal rescue.