The Things I Never Said Out Loud

The Things I Never Said Out Loud

By Hasnain Shah

I’ve always believed silence could be an act of kindness. If you don’t say the harsh truth, you won’t hurt anyone. If you keep the bitterness locked inside, you protect the people you love from the sting of your words. At least, that’s what I told myself every time my chest felt heavy with things I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

But silence has a way of growing sharp edges. It cuts from the inside. It makes you replay every unspoken sentence, every moment you could have said something, but chose instead to swallow it whole. The irony is that in trying not to wound others, I wounded myself.

There are so many things I never said out loud.

I never told my mother that I was scared of her disappointment more than anything else in the world. She thought I was rebellious, rolling my eyes and pushing back against her rules. She thought my sighs meant I didn’t care. The truth was, every time she frowned, I felt like the smallest version of myself—like the whole earth had tilted and I was falling off its edge. What I wanted to say was, “I’m not angry, Mom. I’m just scared I’ll never be good enough for you.”

I never told my father that I noticed the way he softened whenever he spoke about his dreams—the ones he let go of because of bills, responsibilities, and the quiet weight of being the man of the house. I wanted to tell him I admired him more for the sacrifices he made than I ever could for the successes he chased. Instead, I let the conversations end in silence, afraid that my words would embarrass him or feel too heavy.

To my first love, I never said, “I already knew it was over long before you did.” I could feel the gap widening, the silences between us becoming more than pauses—they became borders. But I smiled, and I pretended, because I thought that love was about holding on, not about letting go. If I had said the truth earlier, maybe we wouldn’t have ended in resentment. Maybe we could have parted gently, like two people releasing a balloon instead of watching it burst.

And then there are the smaller, quieter things.

The “thank you” I never said to the friend who sat next to me when I cried in the cafeteria. She didn’t say anything profound. She just slid her sandwich in front of me, like that was the answer to heartbreak. I never told her how much that moment saved me.

The “I forgive you” I never said to the person who betrayed me. I carried that bitterness around like a badge, thinking it gave me power. But forgiveness would have freed me long before time did.

The “I need help” I never whispered into the late-night phone calls when people asked me how I was. I learned how to say “I’m fine” with such conviction that even I started to believe it.

I sometimes imagine a world where all those words spilled out. A parallel universe where I was brave enough to say what I felt in the moment I felt it. Would my relationships have been stronger, or would they have crumbled faster? Would I have been lighter, or just lonelier?

The truth is, words left unsaid don’t vanish. They hover. They hang in the air of your memory like ghosts, rattling their chains at the quietest hours of night. You don’t escape them by staying silent—you just let them haunt you in a different way.

If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s this: the fear of speaking is rarely greater than the regret of silence. Words, once spoken, can be clumsy, imperfect, even painful. But words unsaid are perfect in their cruelty. They become monuments to the moments you could have been honest but weren’t.

So maybe this is my way of finally letting them out—on paper, instead of in person. Maybe this is the only way I know how to say:

Mom, I was always trying. Dad, I was always watching. To my first love, I still wish you well. To my friend, thank you for the sandwich. To my betrayer, I forgive you. And to myself, I’m sorry for pretending to be fine when I wasn’t.

These are the things I never said out loud. But maybe writing them is the beginning of learning how to speak.