A Letter Never Sent Poem by Maanda Sikhwetha

I have been
mysteriously silent
in the subject of love.
Not empty.
Not cold.
Just quiet
the way deep water is quiet—
holding currents no one sees
until they surface.
I watched others speak it freely,
scatter the word like seeds,
while I kept mine
folded,
unspoken,
a letter never sent.
Perhaps I feared
the sound of my own voice
on that particular subject.
Or maybe silence
was the only language
I trusted
not to lie.
Still,
something moves beneath.
Something that knows
the shape of wanting
even if the mouth
refuses the name.
I have been
mysteriously silent
in the subject of love.
But silence,
I've learned,
is not the absence of the thing.
Only the careful keeping of it.