Letters unsent

Letters unsent…

I tried a million times. Rewrote every sentence until the words sounded soft enough, honest enough, safe enough. I stared at the screen for hours wondering if this would finally be the message that reached you… or the one that destroyed me all over again.

Because the truth is, I still love you. In the quietest ways. In the loudest ways. In the ways I pretend I don’t.

And every time I almost hit send, I stop myself.

Not because I don’t want to talk to you. Gosh, I want to more than anything. But do you even want to hear from me? Do you miss me the way I miss you? Do you still think about me when the world gets quiet? Or am I just holding onto something you already let go of?

And if you did feel the same… then why haven’t we reached for each other? Why have we both settled for distance instead of honesty? I leave little pieces of you in the things I post, hoping maybe you’ll notice, hoping maybe you’ll understand that I still miss you without me having to say it out loud. And maybe you do the same in your own ways. Maybe we’re both waiting for some kind of sign, too afraid to be the first person to admit the feelings never really left.

That’s the part nobody talks about. How humiliating it feels to still love someone after you told yourself you’d stop. How exhausting it is to fight the urge to text you every single day. How many drafts sit unsent because I can’t survive another version of your silence.

Because what if I send it and you don’t answer?

Or worse… what if you do, but not in the way I need you to?

What if you’ve moved on while I’ve been carrying us around like a ghost inside my chest? What if I was holding onto memories while you were learning how to live without me?

But then you confuse me.

Why do you still keep one foot in the door if you’re done? Why do you still watch my stories? Why do you search for pieces of me from a distance but never come close enough to touch me? Why haven’t you removed me? Why are our pictures still there like evidence of something neither of us can bury?

Sometimes I think maybe you’re scared too.

Maybe you type messages and delete them just like I do. Maybe your pride is louder than your heart. Maybe we’re both sitting here waiting for the other person to say “I still love you” first.

Or maybe I’m romanticizing breadcrumbs because losing you completely feels unbearable.

I don’t know anymore.

I just know loving you has become this quiet ache I carry everywhere. A wound that looks healed until your name lights up somewhere on my screen and suddenly I’m right back at the beginning.

And no matter how much time passes, some part of me still hopes it’ll be you.

That one day you’ll stop pretending you don’t care.

That one day I won’t have to wonder.

That one day one of us will finally be brave enough to send the letter instead of just writing it.