THINGS I'II NEVER SAY OUT LOUD

Things I’ll Never Say Out Loud There’s a name I never speak, a face my thoughts refuse to free— you. And every time you smile, it feels like my heart is trying to escape my chest just to get closer. But I swallow it. All of it. Because liking someone shouldn’t feel dangerous, and yet somehow it does. I rehearse confessions in my head, building courage in the dark, only to lose it in the daylight when the world feels sharp again. What if they laugh? What if they whisper? What if my heart becomes someone else’s joke? So I sit quietly, pretending I don’t glow when you walk into the room, pretending I don’t fall apart when your eyes meet mine for half a second too long. I hate that I care this much. I hate that I’m scared. But most of all, I hate that loving you silently feels safer than being honest and breaking. Still in the moments no one sees, I let myself imagine a version of the story where you feel it too— where my shaking voice turns into something brave, where my fear becomes a doorway instead of a cage. But until then, my feelings stay tucked away in the softest part of me— not because they’re small, but because they’re fragile, and I’ve learned that fragile things are better hidden than broken