The Room Where I Never Spoke

I have a room behind my ribs

where the unsaid things live.

They eat my laughter at midnight,

sip on the tea of my trembling thoughts,

and line the walls with everything I never told you.

It is wallpapered with

"I’m not okay"

"I miss you, even though I shouldn’t"

"I hate how you look through me now"

and the recurring echo of

"I love you — I did, I still do — but I don’t know how to say it anymore."

Somewhere on the floor

lies a broken sentence

I rehearsed a thousand times

but never let leave my mouth.

It was about the night I almost

ended everything

because silence began to weigh

more than the pain.

You were sleeping in the next room.

I almost knocked.

Almost.

But I didn’t want to be a burden again.

There’s an unspoken scream

stitched into the carpet.

I stepped on it this morning

and felt its sharpness climb into my throat,

but I swallowed — like always.

You call me strong.

I call it survival.

There’s a difference.

The room is quiet,

but the silence is deafening —

a hurricane of held-back apologies,

guilt I never earned,

dreams I amputated

so they wouldn’t outgrow

your comfort zones.

Some of the thoughts in here

are too soft to share.

Some are too cruel.

Some would burn the bridges

I still pretend to want to walk across.

I never told you

I forgave you years ago.

Or that I never really needed

your permission to be whole.

But maybe I needed mine.

I live beside that room.

I water it.

Dust it.

Keep it locked when company comes.

But tonight —

just this once —

I’ve left the door open.

And the poem walked out.