Scorching silence

They say silence is peaceful.
They've never met mine.
Mine arrived at thirteen—
uninvited, unannounced.
The moment my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer.
Something in his throat.
Something that would eat away his voice.
Back then, I didn't know much.
Just that cancer meant the end of people.
Now, at twenty-three, I know every kind,
every cruel stage, every sterile prognosis.
But none of them explain why I still flinch at silence and why it burns.
That day, nothing was said.
No weeping, no explaining.
Just a silence that slithered under doors,
settled in corners,
and pressed its heat against my skin.
My grandfather.
The man who once held my fears like feathers—became still.
My best friend,
my quietest joy,
my softest refuge,
began to vanish not with screams or sorrow,
but with an unbearable absence of sound.
He couldn't speak.
The cancer stole that first.
So I became the voice.
I'd sit beside him on the cold mosaic floor,
telling him about class tests,
the new girl who laughed too loudly,
the teacher who wore mustard socks. 
Trying to fill the silence with stories,
so it wouldn't eat me too.
But still, it lingered.
It pressed its weight on my chest,
sat like fire on my shoulders.
A silence so loud,
so scorching,
I could feel it blister my bones.
Then came the day
he asked to see my grandmother.
Asked to apologise—however one speaks
when the throat no longer does.
But she refused.
They hadn't spoken in decades.
I never knew why.
All I knew was that even in his final days,
even in the heavy stillness of dying,
her silence spoke louder
than forgiveness ever could.
No one forced her.
No one urged.
The silence between them stood untouched,
a monument of decades.
And then it spread.
To my uncles, my aunts,
my mother, my father.
Our home. 
once full of doorways and laughter,
began to burn quietly from within.
And then—
he died.
I was in my school uniform,
tying my hair,
when the silence changed shape.
He hugged my mother.
He hugged my father.
And then he slipped away on my father's chest, holding my mother's hand.
No cries.
No screams.
Not even a whisper of goodbye.
Just silence.
Scorching,
burning silence.
Scorching in a way the April sun never was.
Scorching in a way a fever never feels.
It wasn't just grief.
It was the heat of all the words unsaid,
of love held back,
of pain no one dared give voice to.
At thirteen, it burned my skin.
At twenty-three,
I carry it like my second skin.
Sometimes, I wonder
how words still come to me, 
how I weave them together
like thread through wounds.
Wasn't I made of too many words
I never got to say?
Perhaps it's the losing, the bearing,
the breaking in silence that shaped me.
Perhaps
this voice you hear today
was carved from all the things
that burned in scorching silence.

Nishat Anjum occasionally contributes to Star Books and Literature.