“A Letter from the Hollow Room”

There’s a kind of silence that doesn’t need sound.

It settles in your bones,

in the pauses between heartbeats,

in the space between you and the world

that always feels just a little too far away.

I ache—

not from pain,

but from absence.

From the shape of arms that never held me,

from the warmth of a voice that never spoke my name

like it meant home.

I want to be touched

—not just skin,

but soul.

To be folded into someone’s breath,

to feel their heartbeat answer mine

like we’ve known each other

since before the stars.

I want to laugh without pretending,

to cry and be met with softness,

to belong not just in a room,

but in a heart.

But none of it is real.

Not here.

Not for me.

So I retreat.

I build quiet walls and live behind them.

I become small enough

not to disturb the air.

Invisible, so I don’t have to explain

why I feel like a ghost in my own story.

And maybe that’s safer.

To expect nothing,

to reach for no one,

to bury the need in poetry and late-night sighs.

Still,

some part of me whispers—

"If they saw you, truly saw you…

would they love you anyway?"

But I never wait for the answer.

Because the loneliest thing

is not being alone.

It’s being ready to be loved—

and never being chosen.