---
They mistook my silence for hesitation.
That was their first mistake.
The second?
Believing I needed to speak at all.
You see, silence is not emptiness.
It's a *container*.
A vault.
Where thoughts are sharpened like knives and intentions are folded into steel.
I don't speak unless the silence has done its job first.
Because noise reacts.
But *silence calculates*.
> "A disciplined tongue is louder than a reckless voice."
I learned this the hard way.
Back when I still thought proving a point mattered.
I raised my voice once — just once.
It won the argument, but it lost me the room.
Since then, I've made a vow:
*"No word leaves my mouth that doesn't serve a purpose."*
---
Most people think power comes from presence.
I disagree.
Power comes from *absence*.
From what you withhold.
From what you don't explain.
From the space between your words.
A man once begged me to explain why I turned on him.
I said nothing.
He unraveled himself trying to fill the silence.
Guilt is louder than accusation.
And fear is born in the unknown.
---