She told me a story
Without saying a word,
Without uttering a sound,
The room was silent.
No mouth was open,
All words were left unspoken
And yet a story was told
In the blink of an eye,
The tick of a clock
A story as long as any other
She said how she grew up
Without her mother
How she went to school
Without having slept a wink
Because her life at home
Was pushing her to the brink
Over the edge she wanted to slip
To slip into nothingness,
But she didn't give up,
For the sake of her life
She pushed on, persevered
In her never-ending strife.
She said all this without saying a word.
All this was said with silence all around.
This was said when she walked down the aisle,
Walking to me.
With her eyes alone she told me the story
About her past and how now the caged bird is free
And we should all know how powerful the silence can be.
© Uwais Coetzee
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Grade 10
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