The Sound of Unsent Messages

I stare at the “typing…” bubble.

Then it vanishes. Then it returns.

Then it vanishes again.

That little gray cloud has become my entire universe.

It’s been 47 minutes. My thumb hovers over the message I wrote—

“I miss you. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

I delete it again for the fifth time tonight.

I thought silence was painful, but this… this waiting for something that may never come is torture.

You used to reply within seconds. Remember? Even your voice notes were chaotic and fast, always with that laugh buried at the end. Now the only sound is the air conditioning and the faint hum of a neighbor’s television down the hall. Silence has changed its definition. It’s no longer the absence of noise. It’s the absence of you.

---

We were never official, and that was the trap.

No labels meant no expectations, and no expectations meant no guarantees.

You were the unpredictable summer storm in my otherwise cloudless life.

I was the calm, the routine, the always-there. You liked that. Until you didn’t.

I should have walked away when I saw you hesitate with commitment.

But I held on tighter instead—hoping my love could convince you to stay.

Now all I have are screenshots of conversations I scroll through like a digital graveyard of what once made me smile.

There’s one where you said, “I wish I met you sooner.”

There’s another that says, “Don’t ever disappear.”

Funny. Now you’re just a ghost with a phone.

---

Tonight, I walked past the park we used to sit in, the one with the swing that always creaked like it held secrets.

I sat on it, hoping to hear the echo of your voice in the rusted metal. But all it said was, “You’re alone.”

Sometimes I think I see you in a crowd.

Your silhouette, your walk, your laugh—

But it’s just someone else with the same hair color or the same careless charm.

And even if it were you, I wouldn’t know what to say.

Would I smile? Would I walk away? Or would I crumble again?

---

I wonder if you think of me.

Not often. Just once. Maybe when that song plays. Or when you pass a bookstore and remember the time I made you buy poetry.

You said poetry was pointless.

I said, “It only feels pointless until you need it.”

You rolled your eyes and kissed my forehead.

I need it now.

---

I open my Notes app.

Unsent Message #38:

“I hope you’re okay. Not happy—just okay. That’s all I can wish for anymore.”

Unsent Message #62:

“It’s weird how you’re not dead, but I’m grieving anyway.”

Unsent Message #75:

“I don’t want you back. I just want to understand why you left when everything felt so real.”

My phone battery flashes red.

I let it die.

Maybe we both needed to.

---

People ask how I'm doing. I say I'm fine.

But “fine” is the most well-dressed lie.

I smile, I show up, I work, I laugh.

But grief doesn’t always wear black. Sometimes, it wears fake smiles and functioning routines.

Healing isn’t loud. It’s not dramatic.

It’s quiet, like a phone that never rings.

Like a notification that never comes.

Tonight, I finally mute your chat.

I used to think that was something heartless people did.

Now I think it’s something healing people do.

You’ll always exist in the soft ache of old memories, in half-written texts, in late-night walks and coffee shop playlists.

But you don’t get to live in my mind rent-free anymore.

Not forever.

---

So I sit here, writing this to no one in particular.

To anyone and no one.

To the part of me that still hoped you’d come back.

To the version of me that thought love was enough.

---

To anyone reading this who's stuck in the echo of an unsent message:

You don’t need their reply to heal.

You don’t need closure signed by their hand.

You are allowed to move on with no goodbye.

Some stories don’t end with a period.

Some end with silence—

And that’s okay, too.

Because silence, when you choose it, is no longer absence.

It becomes peace.

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