The Things I Never Said — for #mam

There were words, #mam,

that lived inside my chest like quiet storms—

soft enough to hide,

but loud enough to keep me awake at night.

Things I never said…

like how your presence felt

like someone finally opening a window

in a room I didn’t know I was suffocating in.

How your voice could settle

the earthquakes in my ribcage,

and your silence—

even that—

could bruise me in places no one would ever notice.

How loving you always felt like praying,

even when I didn’t know what to ask for.

But I never said these things,

#mam,

because some truths are too fragile

to survive outside the heart that holds them.

And now they sit here in the dark—

unspoken, unfinished,

like a letter I rewrote a thousand times

but never found the courage to send.

If only you knew…

the things I never said

were always louder

than the ones I did.