Hoarseness

Your voice breaks. It becomes rough, scratchy, thin — sometimes it almost disappears entirely. What sounded clear yesterday is today only a whisper. You want to say something, and what comes out is a muffled croak, half a tone, a promise of voice that cannot be kept. Medically speaking, your vocal cords are irritated or swollen — they can no longer vibrate freely, which is why the sound becomes fragile.

But beyond the purely physical level, another question arises: what exactly should have been said here — and isn't? Which sentence is sitting so heavily on the tip of your tongue that your vocal cords would rather fall silent than let it go?

Hoarseness is not a clear yes. It is also not a clear no. It is the in-between. The half. What wants to be said — and gets stuck in the throat, because you are not really allowed to speak it.