I know what I mean
until I have to say it.
Then the words fly away
like birds scattering.
I feel everything
in full paragraphs.
But when I speak,
I lose the sentence before it lands.
I say the wrong thing.
Or nothing at all.
Both feel like failure.
People look at me like I’m quiet.
But inside, I’m loud
with things I haven’t figured out how to say.
There’s a version of me
that never blanks,
never stumbles,
never regrets a silence.
Every unsaid thing
carried by the version of myself
that could have been understood
if I had only known how to explain.
Maybe they still live in me
underneath the pauses
and the aching hindsight.
Maybe one day
I’ll speak like I think
clear, calm, and complete.
But until then,
please know:
Just because I go quiet
it doesn’t mean I have nothing to say.
Sometimes,
it means I care too much
to say it wrong.