POETRY | The Woman Who Screamed In Silence

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I met a woman in Pennsylvania,
her eyes carried more bags than two hands ever could.
She was clutching her chaos as if it gave her comfort.
I caught her, red-handed,
playing origami with her organs.
It was something about the way she folded into herself,
how her words stuck to the roof of her throat.
Trauma must’ve ripped her tonsils out;
now she just screams through scowls,
low growls, immense disdain.
This woman was a whirlpool of pain,
and I knew I’d drown trying to swim through all the grief in her brain.
Running my fingertips along the skeletons of her past,
each bone like braille,
I read her—and wished I couldn’t.
Bony and broken in places that words failed to reach,
I stood in the same spot she did when life set her soul on fire.
I could feel her hope frying beneath the flames of depression.
Who knows where the ashes of who she used to be landed?
Probably still floating in the air like dust particles.
I didn’t know that meeting her would mean carrying her for the rest of my life.
Yet here we are, decades later;
something in her attached to me.
Now I’m sharing space with her ghost in my gift,
hoping, once I repaint the bridge with my penmanship,
she’ll pass over peacefully.
It’s quite apparent:
our meeting in Pennsylvania wasn’t coincidental.
She had a story to tell,
and my fingertips still burn from the screams embedded in her bones like braille.
I’m just a messenger,
putting her pain in a position to be set free.
Most people leave earth
with more regrets, less roses.
Let this poem be a bouquet for her—
the woman who screamed in silence.

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About The Author

M’chal Prosperity is a creative force driven by truth, resilience, and redemption. Inspired by life, loss, and liberation, they use poetry and art to challenge, heal, and awaken. This isn’t just expression, it’s impact.