The Place Where I Don't Say It

There is a version of me

you will never meet—

the one who stares at ceilings

and tells the dark the truth.

*

I smile instead.

I laugh too quickly.

I nod when I want to run.

*

What I don’t say

is that some mornings,

I am a house with no doors—

just walls,

silence pressed against silence.

*

What I don’t say

is that I still carry every goodbye

like a note folded

too many times in my pocket.

*

I don’t tell you,

how rage hums beneath my ribs,

not fire,

but static—

a thousand voices screaming

This is not okay

while I sip tea

and ask how your weekend was.

*

I never admit

that when you touched my shoulder

in that brief, innocent way,

I almost cried—

because I forgot

what gentleness felt like.

*

I joke instead.

I change the subject.

I become small in ways

you don’t notice.

*

And love?

Don’t even start.

There are entire novels

I’ve never written

because saying, “I need you”

feels like walking a tightrope

over all my worst fears.

*

There is tenderness in me

that aches like a bruise

never pressed.

*

There are apologies

I rehearsed in mirrors.

There are screams

I swallowed

until they became

a quiet erosion of self.

*

But tonight,

let the poem be the room

where I finally speak.

*

Let the lines hold

what my voice could not.

*

I’m afraid.

I’m angry.

I’m tired of being

the strong one,

the silent one,

the shape that fits

into everyone else’s comfort

but my own.

*

I want

to be messy,

to be loud,

to be held

without having to earn it.

*

I want

to be forgiven

for all the things

I did just to survive.

*

I want to stop

editing myself

into something palatable.

*

So here it is—

the soft underbelly

of the things I never say:

*

I’m here.

I’m hurting.

And I want to be seen

without having to disappear

to do it.