Things go unsaid
in little layers of awkwardness
between the places
where bridges could be stretched
across the chasm of our doubts

Things go unsaid
while we explain —
explain away the need,
in that moment
to be heard and seen
and then it’s gone

And we are left with
all the stories we will forge
of how it didn’t matter anyway
or how it’s better
that we didn’t speak

And so we drift away,
connection lost
in the superficial chatter
that we use to paper over
things that go unsaid.

©Wendy Mulhern
August 13, 2014