Unsaid

Photo Courtesy: Zhengyang Tian / Pexel

I dreamt of you

a day after Valentine’s—

when roses were already wilting

and the world had folded its paper hearts away.

We were seated side by side

on a long, humming commute,

the kind where windows hold

blurred cities like passing memories.

Unknowingly, you linked our fingers.

So simple.

As if six silent years

had never happened.

You held my hand

while I held my breath—

afraid that even air

might wake me

from something too gentle to question.

Has it truly been six years

since we last spoke without armor?

Six years since words flowed easy

and not like letters

left unsent in trembling drafts?

The first time I saw you,

yes, you were beautiful—

but it was your mind

that unraveled me.

The way your thoughts bloomed mid-sentence,

how your laughter arrived unannounced,

how every conversation felt

like stepping into sunlight

after a long and faithful winter.

I could have listened forever—

to your endless stories,

to the way your hands moved

as if sculpting invisible constellations in the air.

I laughed at your antics,

pretending I wasn’t memorizing

every small, shining thing.

Every day with you

felt like oxygen—

and yet

I was the one who forgot

to breathe honesty into the room.

If I had been braver,

would we have needed dreams

to sit beside each other again?

Would my heart still be pacing

through corridors of what if?

Tell me—

would it be selfish

to ask the universe for another life?

One where we meet

not as almosts

or nearlys

or almost-spoken truths—

But as two people

unafraid of the tremor in their voice,

unafraid to say

I feel this too.

In that life,

when you reach for my hand,

I won’t hold my breath.

I’ll hold you back.