Letters I Never Sent

I wrote you a hundred times. Never sent a single one. My hands they trembled. Not from fear. From memory. I remember your voice. Not the words. The sound. Warm. Then gone. I should’ve said more. But silence always won. I swallowed everything. My dreams. My anger. My hope. My need. They sat in my chest rotting. growing roots. I wanted to say I missed you. I still do. But even that felt dangerous. What if you moved on? What if you forgot me? So I wrote instead. Not poems. Not art. Just pain shaped into sentences. You never saw them. I burned one. Tore one. Hid one under the bed. The rest they stayed in my head. You don’t know how many things I never said. How many times I imagined your reply. And how many nights I pretended you were reading. These letters they became me. Not communication. Confession. I never mailed them. Because they weren’t for you. They were for the version of me that needed you. And that version died waiting.