By Pungyambam Galaxy Roy
There was a silence that didn’t soothe,
only swallowed.
I fell into it
when everything I built
crumbled before me.
When losses hit like thunder,
friends turned into strangers,
and dreams turned into debts.
I gave up more than money—
I gave up the meaning of life.
Even hope began to fade and look away.
I tried to move,
but the past kept lingering.
Each breath was a borrowed breath.
Each day,
was a battle between hope and despair.
And yet—
something aroused.
Not from outside,
but from within.
A voice, so faint but firm:
“Bend, but don’t break.
Kneel, but don’t quit.”
So I sat down.
Not to run,
not to escape,
but to listen.
I sat down with the pain,
with the burden of all I’d lost.
I explored beneath the trough point,
and I found the faint voice,
I was longing for.
Through pain and bruises,
through broken prayers,
through nights that wouldn’t end—
I learned I was not the mistake.
I was the one
who survived it.
Not healed,
but healing.
Not strong,
but standing.
Not finished,
but becoming.
In the end,
I did not find success,
or victory,
or applause.
I found something louder.
Louder than silence,
louder than sorrow,
louder than all I lost.
I found me.