Be Quiet
There was once a little girl
She was always in her own world
Loud, happy
Living through life as a reverie
Waltzing through the golden days of her youth.
Then the devil came along
He didn’t hit her,
Didn’t scold her,
No, he didn’t even touch her.
“Be quiet,” The devil whispered.
She never heard him.
“Be quiet,” The devil said.
She heard him, but paid no heed.
The devil soon went away,
But not forever.
“Be quiet,” her mother had whispered along the lines of.
“Be quiet,” her father shouted.
And the devil smiled in a corner,
For her voice slowly dwindled
Amongst the ironic ballad
Of the walls of her home.
She was too much for this house,
She thought.
She’ll leave soon, she thought.
Soon she’ll be out in the world,
Where soon she’d never be told to
Be quiet.
Soon.
So she left.
And the devil smiled in a corner.
But lo, the little fool pranced out into the world,
But all she could hear was
“Be quiet.”
And no matter how hard
She tried to recognize the Devil’s voice
In those words that pierced through her heart,
All she could hear was
Her mother’s whisper,
Tinted with disappointment
And her father’s thundering voice,
Varnished with anger.
And the Devil rejoiced,
For her voice was now no more
To be heard,
Rumpled and
Corroded;
She was finally quiet,
Drifted apart from the kaleidoscope
That she thought life was.
Now that little girl is no more;
Not dead, no —
But not alive.
Merely existing in the black and white tapestry
Of being.
And the Devil has won.
Copyright © Issha S Bose | Year Posted 2026
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