solitude in fortitude
She holds the welling tears in public places,
She tries so hard to hide in crowds of faces,
Everyday she carries that kind of heaviness inside,
the heaviness that weighs her down.
She holds it, she carries it, with a smile on her face.
Cracking up jokes,
Wearing vacant smiles
and shining colors to paint their days,
When in silence
and in secret,
She trudges
on the way home.
She cries at her front door,
Behind the door,
she crumbles into rubble,
In the dark light of her room,
She whines in pain
and weeps in her sleep.
In between her walls,
She brawls against her doubts and hopelessness,
She’s lost too much,
She’s fallen too deep.
Burned too much,
Bruised too much,
then bled too much
— but is there ever ‘too much’ of pain for her then?
Because the rain doesn’t seem to ever stop for her.
Despite the thralling storms she’s been through,
Despite the what-ifs that no longer exists,
Despite the daydreams that only stay dreamed,
Despite the dreams she no longer dreams,
Despite the broken wishes and the falling bridges,
There’s still a voice.
A whisper she hears at night.
The whisper that sings a line of ‘you’ll make it through’.
A spark of hope in the world of darkness.
A speck of warmth in the coldest windstorm.
The fainting voice in the silence,
lulling her to keep believing, to keep living, to keep dreaming.
— though solitude she be, in the fortitude that stirred.
Muthia Huda 2022
