By the time hunger became normal to me, something else had started growing inside my chest—silence.
It didn't happen all at once. Silence crept into me slowly, like water seeping into cracks. At first, I still tried to explain myself. I tried to answer questions. I tried to defend myself when I was accused. But every word I spoke seemed to make things worse.
So I began to speak less.
One morning, Aunt Ezinne accused me of stealing sugar. I shook my head quickly.
"It wasn't me, Aunty. I didn't touch it."
Before I could finish, the slap landed.
"Are you calling me a liar?"
That was the day I learned that truth had no value in her house.
After that, whenever something went wrong—a missing spoon, water finished too early, noise from the compound—she didn't ask questions. She called my name.
"Chibuzo!"
That name, once spoken with love by my mother, now came wrapped in anger. My body would stiffen every time I heard it. Sometimes, even when I hadn't done anything, fear alone made my eyes fill with tears.
"Why are you crying?" she would shout.
"You've already admitted your guilt."
Silence became my shield.
I stopped explaining. I stopped asking. I stopped begging. I learned to lower my head and say nothing while blows rained on me. I learned that quietness shortened punishment.
At home, I moved carefully—walking softly, placing plates gently, breathing quietly. I became invisible, hoping invisibility would protect me.
But even silence could not save me from humiliation.
One afternoon, guests came. Aunt Ezinne called me out and ordered me to kneel before them.
"This boy is stubborn," she said loudly.
"His mother spoiled him before she died."
The words stabbed me. I wanted to scream that my mother was kind, that she never spoiled me—she loved me. But I stayed quiet, my head bowed, tears dropping onto the floor.
Later that evening, while washing clothes at the back, her son Ifeanyi pushed me and poured dirty water on my head. When I complained softly, Aunt Ezinne shouted:
"See him! Reporting my child?"
I was beaten again.
That night, lying on the floor, I practiced swallowing my pain the way I swallowed hunger. I told myself that speaking only invited more suffering. So I locked my words deep inside me.
Soon, neighbors noticed.
"That boy is always quiet. Is he dumb?" someone asked once.
I wasn't dumb.
I was broken.
In school, when teachers asked questions, my mouth opened but no sound came out. When classmates mocked me, I smiled weakly and endured. Silence followed me everywhere like a shadow.
Sometimes, at night, I whispered my thoughts into the darkness, pretending my mother could hear me. Those were the only moments I allowed my voice to live.
By age six, I had mastered silence better than any lesson life could teach. It kept me alive. It kept me from worse beatings. But it also took something precious away from me.
It took my childhood voice.
And as days turned into months, I didn't know it yet—but the boy who learned silence would grow into a man who would one day struggle to speak his pain aloud.
This was how suffering shaped me—not only with hunger and beatings, but with quietness so deep it became part of my soul.