What My Silence Wanted to Say

Silence speaks in the pauses I never meant to leave.

It hides beneath my tongue,

pressing against my teeth like a word afraid of light.

If it could speak,

it would tell you that I was not indifferent —

only afraid that language would break the fragile thing between us.

Silence does not shout.

It leans in.

It leaves fingerprints on the space between two breaths,

waiting for you to listen without needing a sound.

I wanted to say: I cared.

But the moment felt too sharp,

and my silence softened it into something almost tender.

I wanted to say: Stay.

But silence built a house around my throat,

and I forgot the door.

This is what silence does —

it rewrites everything in invisible ink.

It hides confessions in plain sight,

in the shape of lowered eyes,

in the tremor of a half-smile.

And yet,

not everything unspoken is lost.

Some words bloom in the dark,

like seeds that never needed sunlight.

If you listened closely,

you might have heard the yes trembling behind my no.

My silence was never empty.

It was a hand I couldn’t lift,

a letter I couldn’t send,

a storm too quiet to name.

And if someday my voice finally breaks the surface,

I hope you’ll know

it was there all along —

waiting in the quiet,

speaking without sound.