Writers 
"The Weight of Unsaid Things"
I carry words in my pocket
that I never said to you.
They are heavy.
Heavier than the bag of mangoes
left at a gate with no name.
Heavier than the silence
after _“I have to go.”_
I practiced them in the mirror.
_I miss you._
_I saw you and forgot my name._
_If I had been braver..._
But bravery is expensive.
And I was always counting coins.
So I wrote them instead.
On paper.
In the margins of my life.
In the way I chose the same coffee shop.
In the way I saved you a seat
I knew you wouldn’t take.
Unsaid things don’t die.
They grow.
They become houses.
They become the yellow paint
we never got to choose together.
They become the mango tree
that feeds strangers 40 years later.
People think love is loud.
Fireworks.
Proposals.
Big declarations.
But some love is quiet.
It is a letter in a tin.
It is an umbrella held halfway.
It is a sketchbook left on a table.
It is _“I’m still here”_
with no one to hear it.
And maybe that’s okay.
Maybe not every love
is meant to be held.
Maybe some are meant to be kept.
Like secrets.
Like prayers.
Like the exact way the light
hit your face that Tuesday
at 2pm.
I used to think
not saying it meant it wasn’t real.
Now I know:
the truest things
are the ones we carry
without ever putting them down.
So here are my unsaid things.
I’m saying them to the air now.
To the house.
To the tree.
To you, wherever you are.
Thank you
for the almost.
Thank you
for the what-if.
Thank you
for teaching me
that love can live
in a biscuit tin
and still be enough.
I’m letting go now.
Not of you.
Of the weight.
The words can stay.
But I’m walking lighter.
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