NISHAT ANJUM

They say silence is peaceful.

They’ve never met mine.

Mine arrived at thirteen—

uninvited, unannounced.

The moment my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer.

Something in his throat.

Something that would eat away his voice.

Back then, I didn’t know much.

Just that cancer meant the end of people.

Now, at twenty-three, I know every kind,

every cruel stage, every sterile prognosis.

But none of them explain why I still flinch at silence and why it burns.

That day, nothing was said.

No weeping, no explaining.

Just a silence that slithered under doors,

settled in corners,

and pressed its heat against my skin.

My grandfather.

The man who once held my fears like feathers— became still.

My best friend,

my quietest joy,

my softest refuge,

began to vanish not with screams or sorrow,

but with an unbearable absence of sound.

He couldn’t speak.

The cancer stole that first.

So I became the voice.

I’d sit beside him on the cold mosaic floor,

telling him about class tests,

the new girl who laughed too loudly,

the teacher who wore mustard socks.

Trying to fill the silence with stories,

so it wouldn’t eat me too.

But still, it lingered.

It pressed its weight on my chest,

sat like fire on my shoulders.

A silence so loud,

so scorching,

I could feel it blister my bones.

Then came the day

he asked to see my grandmother.

Asked to apologise-however one speaks

when the throat no longer does.

But she refused.

They hadn’t spoken in decades.

I never knew why.

All I knew was that even in his final days,

even in the heavy stillness of dying,

her silence spoke louder

than forgiveness ever could.

No one forced her.

No one urged.

The silence between them stood untouched,

a monument of decades.

This is a snippet from the poem. Read the full piece on The Daily Star and Star Books and Literature websites.

Nishat Anjum , while pursuing a degree in medicine, finds herself perpetually caught between medicine and memoirs, forever returning to questions of identity and the emotional cartography of ordinary life.