There are silences that don’t come from peace,
but from being quietly, persistently excluded.
This poem speaks to that — to the kind of moment where someone enters a room
and is met with the coldness of not being welcomed.
It isn’t loud.
It isn’t dramatic.
But it stays.
When the Room Falls Silent
It wasn’t the first time.
It’s happened before.
The hush arrived like an old companion,
unwelcome, settling in the corners
as she walked into the room.
She knew it well.
They were talking —
her husband’s son, wife,
and former sister-in-law.
A circle she couldn’t penetrate.
No matter how hard she tried.
Or what she tried.
Many years of setting down roots.
Creating a new life
in soil that never quite warmed to her.
No longer in her home country.
She moved across the world for him.
She sacrificed.
Because of love.
True love.
She felt out of place.
In her own home.
She wanted to crawl away.
She smiled, again.
Apologized, again.
As if entering a room
was unappreciated
when you don’t match the pattern of the others.
But she remembers another time.
In another place.
When something opened —
a warmth still nameless.
She thought maybe things were different
maybe she belonged.
Finally.
She carried that memory with care.
Hope. Happiness.
But this time
the frost returned.
The coldness.
The silence was deafening.
With a message.
You are not welcome.
⸻
Still —
She is not invisible.
She is not less.
She exists.
She has value.
She is simply is not theirs.
But she is hers.
And she will not spend her life
trying for the unattainable.
It hurts too much.
At times crushing.