Things You Can’t Say Out Loud

There are things I’ve never said.

Words that live in my chest

like ghosts refusing to move on.

They rattle the bones of my silence,

but I smile and keep pouring coffee

like I’m not being haunted

by all the things I cannot speak.

I want to tell someone:

Sometimes I’m not okay.

Not in a poetic, “rain on glass” way,

but in the way where the air feels too thick

and my skin too tight.

Where I shrink inside my own name

and disappear in plain sight.

But I just say, “I’m fine.”

Because that’s what you say

when you can’t say anything else.

I’ve thought about disappearing,

not in death—but in escape.

Packing a small bag,

slipping out of the life that looks good on paper,

and starting over where no one knows me.

A soft restart.

But I stay. I stay because

you don’t abandon the people you love—

even when you feel like

you’ve already abandoned yourself.

There are moments I feel like

everyone is pretending.

Like we’re all just performing

the idea of being okay—

clapping for each other’s masks.

And I wish someone would just say it:

“I’m tired too. I’m lost too.”

Not in passing,

but in the sacred way truth is shared

between two people

who are tired of pretending.

Sometimes I miss people I had no business loving.

People who broke me beautifully,

who painted red flags like sunsets.

And still, a part of me aches

like they left a bruise on my soul.

You can’t say that out loud—

that you miss the pain

because it was the only time you felt something real.

I don’t believe in “meant to be” anymore.

I think life is just a long string of chances—

some we catch,

most we watch fall.

I don’t think love is enough.

Not always.

Sometimes love is a soft lie

we tell ourselves

so the emptiness won’t echo so loud.

I get jealous of people who cry easily.

I haven’t cried in months.

There’s a dam somewhere inside me

and behind it is a flood

I don’t have the strength to survive.

So I keep it shut.

And smile.

And nod.

And say, “It’s nothing.”

Sometimes I imagine the words

I wish someone would say to me.

“I see you. Not just the you you perform—

but the trembling, tired, barely-holding-on you.”

“I’m proud of you.”

“I don’t need you to be strong today.”

But those words don’t come.

So I say them to myself

quietly,

when no one is looking.

There are nights I stay up

just to listen to the world sleep.

It comforts me—

knowing that while I unravel in the dark,

someone out there dreams in peace.

I tell myself that maybe tomorrow

I’ll find the words I swallowed today.

That maybe someone will notice

the war behind my eyes

and love me anyway.

And here’s the worst of it—

the truth I can’t speak even in prayer:

Sometimes I don’t know if I want to keep trying.

Not forever. Just… not today.

But I get up anyway.

I brush my teeth.

I answer emails.

I laugh when I’m supposed to.

Because life keeps moving,

and I don’t know how to ask it to wait for me.

There are things you can’t say out loud.

Like how lonely you feel

in a room full of people who love you.

Or how success feels like a burden

when your heart is empty.

Or how sometimes you wish

you could fall apart without fixing it right away.

But this is the closest I’ve come—

to writing it down,

to whispering these unspeakable truths

into the page

and letting them breathe.

Because maybe, just maybe,

you’ve felt this too.

And maybe knowing that

is enough for now.