I don’t think you realise why I’ve gone quiet. It’s not because I don’t have anything to say. It’s because every time I do… it turns into something bigger than it needs to be.

I’ll start small. Just trying to explain how something felt. How i was feeling inside, the feelings that made me pause, where my chest began to feel heavy. Where all of a sudden my body was shaking from within.

Not even blaming you. Just saying it out loud. And somehow it shifts. Your tone changes. The conversation moves. And suddenly I’m not explaining how I feel anymore… I’m defending it.

Explaining why I feel that way. Why it wasn’t meant the way you took it. Why I even brought it up in the first place.

And by that point…it’s not even about what I was trying to say anymore.

So I’ve stopped. Not all at once. I’ve stopped choosing which things are worth saying and which ones I’ll just carry by myself instead.

Because it’s in these moments it feels easier to stay quiet, it feels easier to sit in silence then defending my words and how I feel. It feels easier than to feel like everything I say turns into an argument.

And I don’t think you see that part. You don’t see the more hurt it causes, you don’t see how I slowly pull back and now how much I’ve had to learn to hold back now.

How many times I think about saying something…and decide not to.

Not because it doesn’t matter. But because I already know how it will end.