The Tower of Babel-Silence

I awoke one morning with a fervent desire to reach the heavens. So, I built a foundation of silence, with pillars of poetry, bricks of metaphor, and mortar of languages. In the end, I saw the light, and I realized that the light was not in the heavens, but here on Earth, all around me. I stood and marveled before my tower of Babel, intended to separate; it instead unified my mind, body, and spirit. Words would build my home on Earth, not my way to heaven; it was words that would save my life.

Silence

My first relationship with words grew in their absence. I came from a traditional home where “What happens in the house, stays in the house” was the law that reigned supreme. I was a quiet child and focused most of my efforts on reading. There was nothing of significance in my home to keep me tethered to this world; I instead immersed myself in worlds of fantasy, love, horror, mystery, and history. I was often silenced when I spoke, so I quickly learned that I had nothing of value to say. However, I did have a world of value to take into my being via stories others had told. So, when tasked to be a part of my family or my home, I instead chose to make a home in the worlds outside of myself, the imagined and real places that existed between paper covers.

As I aged, I grew a profound love for reading and escaping. I relished being a princess, a sorcerer, a wicked witch, a prince charming; I did not relish being Amanda. I found my freedom in life through others' words and was encouraged to pursue that freedom, so long as I had no words of my own. 

When I was 12 years old, my uncle began molesting me. He would sneak into my bedroom at night and slip out shortly after without any notice. I had been asked to care for my younger cousins between the time when my aunt left to work and when my uncle would arrive home. But because he came home so late, my mother and Grandmother decided it was best that I just spend the night; they never asked how I felt about it. In truth, if they had, I would not have found the words to answer. When I finally found the courage to tell my mother what was happening on those long, lonely nights, I was met with tears and silence. 

We went that night to tell my grandmother and Aunt what had been happening, and we were met with denial, the look of betrayal plastered on their faces. How dare I? He loved me. It wasn’t his fault that I didn’t recognize a father’s love. These words swirled around my head like a fly you cannot catch. You know it is there, you hear it, but you start to wonder if you’re crazy because you can’t seem to see it. They were the first words to become my enemy, but not the last. Shortly after our conversation, my grandmother came over to me and sat on the couch. I sat in my innocence, my world not yet shattered, my palms on my knees, my mouth closed. They always loved me most when I was silent. 

“Manda…” she swallowed back. 

What? Pride? Fear? Disgust? 

“Manda, you’re such a strong girl. You know that, don’t you?” 

I turned to meet her eyes. 

She took my hands in hers. “The thing is, your aunt is not strong. She just isn’t. She needs your uncle. The girls need him. Austin needs him.” 

My mind wandered to my little cousins. They are innocent, sweet; how long until they were my age? Then I thought of Austin; he is so young; he is autistic, nonverbal. What if he? No. It was too ugly to think about. He would not, right? I used to think that about me also. 

“Manda, I know this is hard, but I need you to be strong. I need you to be strong because you are stronger than your aunt. You need to be strong for this family. Can you do that?” 

My strength would come in the form of silence; I nodded.

I lost my trust in the world that night, yet I did not know it. At the time, I thought I was just strong. Strength came in silence for my family, and, well, I had been practicing for years. For all the times I had failed at being a part of things, for all the times they had wondered if I even belonged, I suddenly had my place to fill. I was the person who would harbor our family's secrets. I was the one who, in her strength, in her silence, would bring pride to the family name. In hindsight, I realize that the people charged to protect me used the idea of their love to hurt me. They led me to the lion's cage and then tasked me to be eaten alive for the sake of the group that existed outside the cell. They were never in any danger, but I was. They watched me die inside. I got torn apart by a predator with a smile on my silent lips and an illusion of being their savior. I later realized that I didn’t need to save anyone but myself, and while it took many years to realize that, this was the moment it all changed. I have since acknowledged it and moved on. I never made it out of the cage, but at least now, I can coexist with the lion.

After that night, I escaped into books. I wanted to live in the world where the knights fight the dragons, not stay quiet to protect them, where innocence wasn’t corrupted by the people trusted to care for us, and little girls could go to sleep at night and wake in the morning; untouched. It would take years before I broke my silence, but the foundation it had built was solid. It became the very core of who I was, and as life happened to and around me, my foundation of silence remained strong, just as I was when I built it.

My silence remained unmatched for years, until one day, I found it. There in the dark crevices of my mind, back where no one had dared to go for a very long time, I found my voice. I opened my mouth and there, from my lips that had become so accustomed to their closeness to one another, sprouted beautiful words of spun gold, and this is how I discovered poetry.