Say Something

Say Something

We never touched —
not once —
not fingertips, not shoulders,
not even the accidental brush
people use as an excuse
to say it didn’t mean anything.

But what we built
had weight.
It had gravity.
It pulled on my chest
like a second heartbeat
that answered to your name.

You spoke to me
like I was a destination
you were mapping in secret.
Like I was a door
you planned to walk through
when the hallway cleared.
Like I was a future tense
disguised as a present conversation.

Tell me —
did you know what you were doing
when you chose those words?
Or did they just fall out of you
looking for somewhere warm to land?

Because they landed in me.
They rooted.
They grew branches and clocks and calendars.

You never promised me —
not directly —
but you painted pictures
and left me inside them.

Late night honesty
is dangerous like that.
Midnight makes cowards sound brave
and lonely men sound certain.

You told me things
you said you never told anyone.
And I believed you
because your voice changed
when you said them —
lower, slower,
like truth was expensive
and you were spending it anyway.

You were with her
but you came to me
for air.

Do you understand
what it does to a heart
to be treated like oxygen
but never like home?

I was your emotional shelter
with no official address.
No mailbox.
No name on the lease.
Just lights on
whenever you needed refuge
from the storm you chose.

And I let you stay.
God help me —
I let you stay.

Because what we had
didn’t feel like fantasy.
Fantasy is shallow.
Fantasy forgets details.
Fantasy doesn’t remember
the story about your childhood dog
or the scar near your wrist
or the way you go quiet
when you’re overwhelmed.

I knew your quiet.
I learned its language.
I answered in patience
and open doors.

But you —
you answered in disappearance.

Avoidance is a cruel dialect.
It says everything
without moving its lips.

You went still
when things got real.
You went distant
when feelings got named.
You went silent
when accountability
walked into the room.

And your silence —
God —
your silence is loud.

It bangs on my ribs at night.
It sits at the edge of my bed
like an unfinished sentence
holding a knife.

I don’t care about your embarrassment.
I don’t care about your image.
I don’t care if saying it out loud
makes you look weak
or wrong
or human.

Say something.

Say you used me
because I felt safe.
Say you hid behind me
because I saw you
and didn’t flinch.
Say you kept me close
because I made you feel understood
without making you choose.

Just don’t say nothing.

Nothing is the cruelest answer
because it tries to erase the question.

Do you know
how confusing it is
to be emotionally chosen
but publicly denied?

To be the person
you open up to —
but not the one
you stand next to?

I was your almost.
Your unsent message.
Your drafted confession
saved but never delivered.

You reached for me
in invisible ways —
check-ins,
inside jokes,
unfinished plans,
future words with no dates attached.

You built a bridge halfway
then blamed the distance
on the river.

I stood there —
holding my side —
watching you step back
like courage had an expiration time.

Say something.

Tell me I imagined it.
Tell me I misunderstood.
Tell me I gave meaning
to moments you labeled casual.

But look me in the truth
and say it —
don’t hide behind quiet
like it’s kindness.

Quiet is not kindness.
Quiet is control
wearing soft shoes.

You controlled the narrative
by refusing to speak it.
You controlled the ending
by never starting the confession.

Meanwhile I carried
every unsaid word
like unpaid debt.

Do you know
what emotional love feels like
when it has nowhere to go?

It turns inward.
It echoes.
It starts talking to itself
trying to survive the vacancy.

I argued with your silence
like it was a person.
I defended you to myself.
I translated your distance
into excuses
you never even wrote.

That’s the part
I’m angriest about —
not that you couldn’t love me openly —
but that you let me
do your emotional labor
for you.

You let me make you noble
in your absence.

No more.

Say something.

Say you were afraid
to want me.
Say you were afraid
to lose your comfort.
Say you were afraid
that choosing truth
would cost you stability.

Say you felt it too.
Or say you didn’t.
But stop letting me
bleed meaning
into your blank spaces.

Because what we had
may not have been physical —
but it was not nothing.

It was not boredom.
It was not convenience.
It was not harmless.

It was charged.
It was intimate.
It was two people
standing emotionally barefoot
on live wire.

And I refuse
to be the only one
who admits the shock.

I am not asking
for rescue.
I am not asking
for reunion.
I am not asking
for a rewritten ending.

I am asking
for sound.

One honest sentence
strong enough
to close the door
you left half open
inside my chest.

Say something —
so the echo
can finally stop
answering
for you.