The Weight of Small Words (Poetry)

You know the versions of me I never show,

barefaced, unguarded, stripped of cleverness.

You’ve seen me hurt and didn’t flinch.

as if my breaking

wasn’t something to turn away from.

That should make the words easy.

It doesn’t.

I keep my feelings in jars.

labelled, sealed, stacked high.

Every so often one tips over.

and you think you’ve seen it all,

but you haven’t.

The truth is still corked inside.

pressed against glass,

eight letters pushing against the lid.

I’ve been here before.

with hands that promised to hold forever,

with voices that said “I’m not going anywhere.”

until they did.

So I ration my tenderness,

drop by cautious drop,

afraid of spilling it all at once.

Eight letters.

Small enough to fit in a whisper.

Heavy enough to change everything.

When we’re close,

I let my shoulder graze yours like an accident.

When we’re apart,

I invent questions.

as if asking about nothing

isn’t my way of saying everything.

Your hand in mine

feels less like holding

and more like finding,

like two halves

finally recognizing the shape they make together.

It almost makes me believe

in timing,

in fate,

in the idea that love

doesn’t always end in ash.

And still,

I choke.

I rehearse the eight letters in my head.

rolling them around until they lose meaning.

I test their sound in the dark.

feel them swell in my chest,

then swallow them whole

when morning comes.

At night,

I say them without fear.

I say them over and over

until my ribs ache with the wanting.

But daylight makes me cautious again.

bricking up my walls

and locking the gate.

Eight letters.

You deserve to hear them.

But I’m still the wall and the window,

the lock and the key,

the one who longs to be known

and the one who’s terrified of it.

One day,

I’ll stop rationing the truth.

One day,

I’ll spill it without shaking.

Until then,

you’ll find the eight letters here.

tucked between my pauses,

in the spaces where my silence holds you.

...

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