There are pains we can’t talk about not because they’re too deep or too personal, but because they sit in a strange space between guilt and denial. Some wounds ache not because they were inflicted by others, but because we walked right into them, eyes open. And in those moments, silence feels like the only fitting response. Maybe we think we deserve the weight, the sting, the echo of what hurts. Maybe we believe feeling it is some sort of quiet justice.

Other times, the pain feels so trivial in the grand scheme of things, so unworthy of acknowledgment, that to give it voice would almost feel indulgent. Like granting it space would somehow validate it when it should’ve been brushed off, buried, forgotten.

So we carry it in our chest, in our bones, in the way our smile doesn’t quite reach our eyes some days. There’s no confession, no release. Just the quiet acceptance that some pains either belong to us too much, or not at all.

And that’s the kind that lingers.

Love,

Ana 💋