suffocated by what I never told you
When I think of words unsaid
I start to realize
How much I really have to say
But somehow,
Never did
They say everything is done out of either love of fear
And maybe this is both
How can I say what I feel, think, know
Without holding the weight of it first
So I disguised my trepidation as mercy
And never said the words
It’s taken this long to realize
That I regret holding back
Disguising myself into something palpable, palatable
Was an injustice
To my very being
I took the galaxies of my soul and compressed them
Into something you could understand
I took the forests of my mind
And turned them into lumber
To build you a house
You never deigned to stay in
I don’t regret loving you
Because my mother told me
Love given is never wasted
I regret only
Not loving myself back
Changing myself for your love
Did nothing besides ensure
You weren’t really loving me
Only the illusion I had allowed you
To see
My moth stained red
With words unsaid:
“I am me, in all my enormity,
complexity— beauty and chaos.
With contradictions, I fulfill.
If you love me or you don’t,
Either way
I will.”
