✨ “Yakshu in the Park of Avenue”

 

Me, Yakshu… in the park of the avenue, where the breeze carries the scent of old rain and untold stories. The benches still remember the weight of forgotten dreams, and the trees whisper names that time has buried. I walked slow, tracing the cracks of the stone pathway, each one holding a memory of the person I used to be.

There was a time when my voice filled every silence — I spoke, I explained, I defended myself even when I wasn’t wrong. Every emotion I felt was turned into a sentence, and every sentence was thrown into the air, hoping someone would catch it with care. But they never did. My words fell on deaf ears, bounced off walls of pride, and drowned in the noise of opinions that weren’t mine.

Now, as I walk through this park, I hear nothing but my own breath. Silence has become my companion. At first, it scared me — it felt like emptiness, like a room where every echo belongs to regret. But slowly, silence began to shape me. It no longer felt like loneliness; it became clarity.

The sun slipped through the leaves, painting patterns of gold and green on my hands. I remember sitting under this same tree years ago, with people I called friends. We laughed, we dreamed, and I believed they saw me. But time showed me otherwise. Some left quietly, some left loudly, but they all left when I stopped being convenient. And when I asked why, they called me too emotional, too intense, too much of everything they couldn’t understand.

So I stopped asking.

That’s where it began — my quiet revolution. I stopped seeking explanations for the storms others caused. I stopped running after validation. My silence started to speak louder than any defense could. People noticed. They wondered what changed. They couldn’t stand not knowing what my silence meant. They tried to provoke it, to pull me into conversations that I had already outgrown.

But I just smiled.

Because I learned — silence doesn’t need to prove. Silence doesn’t beg to be understood. It just is.

I walked past the old fountain, where water barely flowed now. Its rhythm was tired, like a memory running out of breath. I sat there, listening to the city hum faintly beyond the gates of the park. Life continued, but inside me, something had slowed down — not out of defeat, but out of peace. I didn’t want to shout anymore. I didn’t want to explain who I was to people who never cared to see.

The truth is, silence teaches you who deserves your energy. When you stop talking, you start observing — who stays, who drifts, who gets uncomfortable with your calm. People mistake silence for weakness, but they forget — silence is also a choice. And every time I chose it, I felt stronger.

Sometimes, late in the evening, I still hear the echoes of old arguments — the ones I lost, or maybe the ones I shouldn’t have fought. I remember how my words once carried desperation, trying to fix what was already broken. Now I let those echoes fade. I let the air carry them away.

A sparrow landed near my foot. It looked at me, chirped once, and flew off. For a second, I envied its freedom — then I realized, I had that same kind of freedom now. Freedom from needing to be heard. Freedom from the weight of expectations.

I thought about the ones who hurt me. Those who took my softness for weakness, my silence for surrender. They expected me to break, to scream, to prove my worth in the language of pain. But I didn’t. I let silence do the speaking. And soon, they began to hear it. Not through my voice, but through their guilt.

People began to talk — “She’s changed,” they said.

Yes, I have.
I’ve changed in the way a storm changes the sea — calm above, deep and untamed below.
They will guess.
They will wonder what happened to the girl who once explained everything.
When your silence holds truth, your words become unnecessary.
And sometimes, the calmest person in the room is the one who’s already won.

There’s power in not reacting. There’s dignity in not explaining. There’s strength in walking away without noise. Because when you no longer feed chaos, it starves.

As the evening light stretched long shadows across the path, I looked up. The sky was turning orange — soft, yet burning. Just like me. I was not cold; I was calm. I was not broken; I was rebuilt in silence.

The park felt like a reflection of my mind — peaceful, but full of whispers. The same whispers that once haunted me now soothed me. I learned that silence isn’t the absence of sound; it’s the presence of understanding.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Every inhale felt like forgiveness, every exhale like release. The noise of the world faded, and for a moment, I was weightless.

They say silence can destroy relationships — maybe that’s true. But sometimes, those relationships deserve to be destroyed. Because anything that requires you to constantly explain your worth isn’t love — it’s exhaustion.

I no longer chase people. I no longer defend my name. I let time and silence reveal what words never could.

Somewhere behind me, laughter echoed — a group of strangers passing by. It didn’t hurt anymore. I wasn’t the girl waiting to be included. I was the woman who had learned to enjoy her own company.

As I rose to leave, the wind lifted a few fallen leaves, swirling them in soft motion around me — like a quiet applause from nature itself. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe the universe was whispering: You’ve come far enough, Yakshu. You no longer need to speak to be understood.

I smiled, not because everything was perfect, but because I no longer needed it to be.

And as I walked out of the park of avenue, the world felt different — not quieter, but kinder. Because now, my silence carried weight. It spoke of lessons learned, boundaries built, and peace earned.

They will talk.

But I won’t tell them.

Because I’ve learned —