The Silence Before the Fire

There are stories we shouldn't have to write.

Only silences we’re forced to translate.

I read about a fire today. A mother. Three children. A house that turned into a question no one knows how to answer.

The most dangerous thing about depression is not how loud it screams, but how politely it knocks. It comes dressed like fatigue. Like waiting. Like trying one more time. Until one day, it forgets to knock—and burns the door down instead.

No one chooses to become unrecognizable. But pain does that.
Not in sudden, cinematic moments—but in hours no one sees.
When a woman looks in the mirror and no longer sees a mother, a daughter, a wife—just a thing that hurts too loudly to exist quietly.

And what do we do? We wait.
We say, “Let’s talk tomorrow.”
We say, “Kaya mo ‘yan.”
We say, “Magdasal ka.”
And then we look away.

We build systems that take reports but not responsibility.
We believe in due process but not in urgency.
We leave people at the edge and call it patience.

There were matches. Bottles of paint thinner. CCTV footage.
But the real evidence is older, quieter:
Unanswered cries. Deferred interventions. Emotional wounds treated like gossip.

They call it a crime.
But what do you call it when a system fails so slowly, so thoroughly, it doesn’t even realize it’s part of the weapon?

A woman on fire is not just a headline.
She is a question. And sometimes, the answer is “we weren’t listening.”

Some people break in silence.
Others in fire.

We will hold vigils. Post prayers. Demand justice.
But we won’t talk about what it means to live in a country where mental health is still treated like shame in disguise.
Where being overwhelmed is a sin.
Where motherhood is martyrdom by default.
Where emotional labor is invisible until it turns violent.

I don't know what kind of pain leads a person there.
But I know what kind of world refuses to meet that pain halfway.
And maybe that's the greater tragedy.

No child should die in flames.
No mother should believe that's the only way out.

But it happens.
Because we built a society where asking for help still feels like trespassing.

Until it’s too late.
Until everything’s ash.
And we write posts like these—
Trying to understand a fire that was lit long before the match was struck.

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