The Things I Don't Say

There is a certain kind of sorrow

that learns how to dress itself in light,

how to pull a smile across its mouth

and almost pass for living.

I have become fluent in that language

the careful laugh,

the steady voice,

the art of looking unbroken

so no one sets their pain beside mine

and calls it small.

So I let them believe

I was built to carry storms,

that my shoulders do not shake

after the room goes quiet,

that I do not disappear

in ways no one notices at first.

At home, they search for reasons

as if grief must always leave fingerprints.

My mother turns over the usual suspects

smoke, numbers,

ketones rising like warnings in the blood,

grades falling through tired hands

as though sadness must be earned

by something visible.

My father watches me

like I am a locked door

choosing not to open,

like effort is something simple,

like wanting to be better

should be enough to make it so.

But if only wanting

could heal a thing.

If only wanting

could quiet the heaviness

that settles into my bones

and makes even the smallest hours

feel difficult to survive.

There are people beside me, always

voices, hands, promises,

the soft insistence that I am not alone

and still loneliness finds me

with impossible accuracy.

It waits in crowded rooms.

It sits with me in the dark.

It follows me like a second name,

something spoken without sound.

And then there is this body—

this fragile arithmetic of blood,

this private war beneath the skin,

this diabetes that makes me feel

like I am made of exposure,

like there is something about me

that must always be managed,

measured, apologized for.

I carry it quietly,

but not lightly.

And lately,

Everything aches.

Not in one obvious place,

not enough for anyone to point and say

there, that’s the wound.

just a slow and constant hurting,

like something inside me

has been dimming for years

without ever going dark.

Still, I keep the smile polished.

Still, I stand where they expect strength.

Still, I make myself a lighthouse

with no rescue boat,

glowing for everyone else

while the water climbs my throat.

And somewhere beneath all of it,

under the performance,

under the static,

under the ruin no one can quite name,

I am still here—

quiet as a secret,

fading at the edges,

but here.

Waiting, maybe,

for someone to notice

that even ghosts

can be asking for help.