Letters I Never Sent

I wrote you
a hundred times.

Never sent
a single one.

My hands
they trembled.

Not from fear.
From memory.

I remember
your voice.

Not the words.
The sound.

Warm.
Then gone.

I should’ve said
more.

But silence
always won.

I swallowed
everything.

My dreams.
My anger.

My hope.
My need.

They sat
in my chest

rotting.
growing roots.

I wanted to say
I missed you.

I still do.

But even that
felt dangerous.

What if
you moved on?

What if
you forgot me?

So I wrote
instead.

Not poems.
Not art.

Just pain
shaped into sentences.

You never saw them.

I burned one.
Tore one.

Hid one
under the bed.

The rest
they stayed in my head.

You don’t know
how many things
I never said.

How many times
I imagined
your reply.

And how many nights
I pretended
you were reading.

These letters
they became me.

Not communication.
Confession.

I never mailed them.

Because
they weren’t for you.

They were
for the version of me
that needed you.

And that version
died waiting.