The Things I Carry
in Silence 

There is a version of me
that nobody really knows.

Not even me.

I meet him sometimes
in the quiet.

In the hours when everyone is asleep
and my phone is the only light
left in the room.

He sits somewhere behind my eyes
and watches me pretend.

Pretend I'm okay.

Pretend I'm not tired.

Pretend the things I've lost
don't still have rooms inside me.

Pretend I don't remember.

But I do.

I remember everything.

I learned about loss
before I learned how to explain it.

People disappeared from my life
and the world kept moving.

Five siblings became memories.

People I should have grown up with
became stories.

Faces became photographs.

Names became things
I carried quietly.

And there is something cruel
about being young
and having to learn
that love doesn't always mean
someone gets to stay.

You don't understand grief
all at once.

First you understand absence.

Then you understand why.

Then, years later,
you realize the absence
has been following you
the entire time.

And my dad.

There are things about a father
that are difficult to put into poetry.

Because sometimes
you don't know how to explain
what someone means to you
without making it sound smaller
than it really is.

He's part of the reason
I understand what it means
to worry about someone
while still trying to act normal.

I've watched him deal
with his own struggles.

I've worried about him.

I've carried thoughts about him
that I don't always say out loud.

Sometimes I look at my dad
and realize something terrifying:

The people we think
will always be strong
are human too.

They get tired.

They hurt.

They have their own battles.

And sometimes
you want to protect the person
who spent so much of their life
trying to protect you.

But you don't know how.

So you just worry.

Quietly.

You notice things.

You wonder if he's okay.

You hope tomorrow
is kinder to him.

And you carry that fear
alongside everything else
you're already carrying.

Maybe that's where
some of my anger comes from.

Not one thing.

Everything.

The losses.

The memories.

The pressure.

The fear.

The expectations.

The things I couldn't change.

The things I wish
I could have fixed.

The things I never got
to say.

The things I said
when I was angry
and wished I could take back.

People see the explosion.

They rarely see
the years of pressure
behind it.

Sometimes I play Blood Strike
just to have somewhere
to put the noise.

Another match.
Another screen.
Another distraction.
Another reason to shout
when something goes wrong.

Lag.
Death.
Frustration.

I get angry at the game
because the game is easier
to fight than my own mind.

At least a game
gives you an enemy
you can point at.

Mental health doesn't.

You can't shoot a thought.

You can't punch a memory.

You can't rage-quit grief.

You can't uninstall
the parts of yourself
that hurt.

So you sit there
and carry them.

There are days
when I'm surrounded by people
and still feel completely alone.

I can laugh.

I can joke.

I can talk.

I can act normal.

And then I can go somewhere quiet
and feel the weight
come back.

That's what people don't understand.

Mental health isn't always
crying in a corner.

Sometimes it's laughing
until everybody thinks you're fine.

Sometimes it's replying,
"I'm good."

when what you really mean is,
"I don't even know
how to explain what's happening
inside me."

Sometimes it's being angry
because sadness feels too difficult
to admit.

Sometimes it's sleeping
and waking up
still exhausted.

Sometimes it's staring at your phone
because silence gives your thoughts
too much room.

Sometimes you don't even know
what you're running from.

You just know
you don't want to stop.

And then there's Sonia.

Three years.

Three years of someone
becoming part of my story
without asking permission
to become so important.

She's seen versions of me
that other people haven't.

The happy one.

The annoying one.

The stubborn one.

The quiet one.

The one who overthinks.

The one who says he's fine
when he's anything but.

And somehow
her presence changed me.

Not magically.

Not perfectly.

But enough.

She made parts of me softer.

She reminded me
that I could still care deeply
even when my mind
was trying to convince me
that everything was falling apart.

And sometimes
that's frightening too.

Because when someone matters that much,
you become afraid of losing them.

And after losing people before,

fear remembers.

It whispers,
"Don't get too attached."

But my heart never learned
how to listen.

I think that's why
I write.

Because words don't interrupt.

A page doesn't ask,
"Why are you like this?"

It doesn't tell me
to calm down.

It doesn't tell me
other people have it worse.

It just lets me speak.

So I build worlds.

I create characters.

I write about ghosts.

Maybe that's why
Ghost exists.

A figure that watches.

A figure that understands.

A figure that stays
when everyone else disappears.

Maybe I created him
because some part of me
wanted someone
who could see everything
I couldn't explain.

Someone who wouldn't need
a translation for the darkness.

I want to become a software engineer.

It's strange.

I want to spend my life
building things from nothing.

Code.
Websites.
Apps.
Ideas.

Something that begins
as an empty screen
and slowly becomes alive.

Maybe I like that
because code makes sense.

When something breaks,
there is usually a reason.

You find the error.
You fix it.
You run it again.

People aren't that simple.

Sometimes something inside you
breaks quietly.

No error message.
No warning.
No instructions.

Just a strange feeling
that says,

Something isn't right.

And you don't know
where to begin debugging yourself.

I've spent too much time
thinking I need to fix everything alone.

Fix my anger.

Fix my mistakes.

Fix my future.

Fix my mind.

Be strong for everybody.

Be okay for everybody.

Make my dad proud.

Protect the people I love.

Become somebody.

Don't disappoint anyone.
Don't fall behind.
Don't fail.
Don't break.
Don't complain.
Don't need too much.
Don't be weak.

And somewhere in the middle
of all those rules,

I forgot that I'm still a person.

Still learning.

Still growing.

Still allowed
to not have everything figured out.

My mind has a courtroom inside it.

And I'm always on trial.

Every mistake is evidence.

Every failure is evidence.

Every angry moment is evidence.

Every insecurity
walks into the room
like it has been waiting
for its turn to speak.

And the verdict
is always the same.

Not enough.
Not good enough.
Not strong enough.
Not successful enough.
Not disciplined enough.
Not whatever enough.

But maybe my mind
has been a terrible judge.

Maybe it has been measuring me
only by the moments
I wasn't at my best.

Maybe it forgot
to count the days
I kept going anyway.

Because I have kept going.

Even when grief
made everything heavier.

Even when my thoughts
became louder than my voice.

Even when anger
felt easier than sadness.

Even when I felt lost.

I still created.

I still dreamed.

I still loved.

I still laughed.

I still imagined a future.

I still wanted to become
a software engineer.

I still wanted to build things.

I still wanted Sonia
in my life.

I still cared about my family.

I still worried about my dad.

I still carried the people
I lost.

And somehow,

despite everything,

my heart kept making room
for tomorrow.

I don't want to romanticize
the darkness anymore.

Because pain isn't beautiful
when you're the one carrying it.

It's exhausting.
It's confusing.
It's ugly sometimes.

It makes you angry
at people you love.

It makes you disappear
when you want to be understood.

It makes you question yourself.

It makes ordinary things
feel heavier than they should.

And sometimes
you don't need somebody
to fix you.

You just need somebody
to sit beside you
without making you feel broken
for hurting.

So this is me.

Not the version
I put in photographs.

Not the version
I show everybody.

Not the boy behind the jokes.
Not just the gamer.
Not just the writer.
Not just the future software engineer.
Not just someone's boyfriend.
Not just someone's son.
Not just the boy
who lost people.

I'm all of it.

The anger. The love. The grief. The ambition.
The fear. The memories. The hope.
The mistakes. The dreams.
The silence. The noise.

All of it.

And my dad is part of that story too.

Part of the reason
I worry.

Part of the reason
I understand that strength
doesn't mean being invincible.

Part of the reason
I know that the people we love
can carry pain
without showing us all of it.

Maybe one day
I'll be able to tell him
everything I couldn't say
when I was younger.

Maybe I'll tell him
that I noticed.

That I cared.

That sometimes
I was scared for him.

That even when I didn't know
how to express it,

his struggles mattered to me.

His presence mattered to me.

He mattered to me.

And maybe he'll understand
that while I was trying
to figure myself out,

I was also trying
to understand how to be a son
to a human being
who was fighting his own battles.

Maybe that's what growing up is.

Realizing your parents
aren't superheroes.

Realizing the people you love
can be fragile.

Realizing your siblings
can become memories.

Realizing the person you see
in the mirror
isn't finished yet.

And realizing
that none of that means
your story has to end there.

I'm unfinished.

That's the truth.

I'm a half-written poem.
A program still throwing errors.
A photograph with pieces
missing from the frame.
A person carrying ghosts
without being one himself.

I'm still learning
how to live with my mind.

Still learning
how to carry grief
without letting it become
my entire identity.

Still learning
that anger isn't the only language
my pain can speak.

Still learning
that asking for help
isn't weakness.

Still learning
that loving people
doesn't mean I have to carry
every burden alone.

Still learning
that my worst thoughts
don't get to write my future.

And maybe someday,

I'll look back at this version of me
with something other than shame.

I'll look at him
and say:

You were tired.
You were angry.
You were grieving.
You were scared.
You were confused.
You were trying.

And you didn't always know
what you were doing.

But you kept creating.

You kept loving.

You kept dreaming.

You kept becoming.

You kept showing up
in whatever small ways
you could manage.

And that counts.

It all counts.

The quiet victories.
The mornings you got up.
The nights you made it through.
The conversations you had.
The people you loved.
The poems you wrote.
The dreams you refused to bury.

The future you kept imagining
even when the present
felt unbearable.

All of it.