I'm Not Silent — I'm Just Thinking Poem by Milana Rei

I'm not silent — I'm just thinking.
That's worse than shouting, truth be told.
When crowds unite, their voices linking,
I step aside — I won't be sold.

I lack the blind, heroic fire,
Inside me — chaos, doubt, and flame:
a fear of truth, a vague desire
to seek the truth, though none's the same.

I'm not a saint. I'm self-created.
Now fierce, now cautious, now unclear.
In some things — lost, in some — elated,
in some — too wise, in some — sincere.

I trust the ones the world abandons,
the tired laughter, late and raw,
the land where truth is not commanded,
not locked behind some secret law.

Where shouts are not just mere defiance,
but revelations, wild and true.
Where poets owe no one alliance
but what their deepest selves pursue.

I'm not a hero, not a preacher,
not stoic, rebel, or ideal.
I am no one's assigned schoolteacher —
I live the life I truly feel.

I need to see — a boy just staring
up at the metro's ceiling tile,
an old man sipping tea, not caring,
and next to him — life's twisted mile.

I need to keep in mind one saying
a man once told me, strong yet shy:
"I want to live — but not by swaying
to every bright and shallow lie."

And if I have a kind of striving,
a "career" — then it is this:
to live not bound, not self-depriving,
but for a truth that no one twists.