The Art of Almost Telling Everything

Dear someone,

There are versions of me that only exist in glimpses.

The one who leaves before being left. The one who rewrites chapters with the same ink she used to bleed for someone. The one who loves deeply, but rarely says it first. I’ve built myself out of contradictions emotionally honest, yet always editing the full truth. Loud, but layered. Loyal, but rarely obvious about it.

People think I give too much. What they don’t know is that I never give everything. I always keep one part of myself untouched buried under silence and sarcasm, or wrapped in aesthetics and strategy.

I’ve learned how to curate not just who I am, but how I’m perceived. There’s power in that. There’s protection too. But sometimes I wonder do they love me, or the version I made safe for them to handle?

I’ve stopped trying to be easy to understand. That was never my role. I’m not the “open book” kind of girl. I’m the one who tears a page out and folds it into a letter no one ever receives.

And when I’m hurt, I go quiet.

It’s not the type of silence that begs for attention. It’s the kind that listens to jazz with the lights off. That scrolls through old photos and deletes them before anyone can ask if I miss it. That kind of silence. The kind that says: I’ll be okay, but not today.

They call me dramatic. Maybe I am. But only because I feel things cinematically. I remember moments like they were films edited, scored, colored. I don’t miss people, I miss scenes. How it felt to laugh like the world was on pause. The comfort of someone knowing when I needed saving without asking.

And yet… I’ve walked away from people who meant everything.

Not because I stopped caring. But because our world hurts the ones we care about. And sometimes, love looks like shielding someone from you, from your silence, from your story.

Still, I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t destroy me.

But maybe that’s what makes me dangerous.

I burn quietly.

I rebuild privately.

And I never forget the ones who stayed when I almost didn’t let them.