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.”