Unsaid: Snehal Anni

I don’t know how to be anything but this:
a handful of questions in a body I didn’t choose,
legs always moving, but not always forward.
I fail at being steady,
at wearing certainty like a coat
that fits just right.

Some mornings, I wake up and feel like a sentence
that cuts off too soon.
Other days, I am a comma dragging things out—
an awkward pause,
an attempt to make the moment last
longer than it should.

I rehearse the ways I could belong
to a room,
to an idea,
to the mirror staring back at me.
But the execution always falters,
and I am left with pieces
of something that should’ve been whole.

If you want the truth, here it is:
I think too much.
About the stretch of years I don’t have,
about timing, about marriage, about
the way my hands look in pictures,
the way they don’t look like someone else’s,
someone who knows what they’re doing.

I shrink when I should speak.
In a room full of people who seem to know
exactly where they are,
I scribble notes I’ll never read,
just to keep my hands busy,
to look like I belong.

I care too much when I shouldn’t.
About the boy who doesn’t keep his word,
the friend who left without saying why, 
the people who are looking—
or maybe not looking—at me.
I make meaning out of scraps,
even when I tell myself not to.

I wish I could be louder.
To take my thoughts and throw them,
messy and raw,
into the center of the room
without flinching when they hit the floor.
But even this—
even this feels like a performance,
like an apology before I’ve even begun.

Still, I keep moving.
Not forward, not back—
just moving.
Some days, that feels like enough.
Other days, I wish
I could stop pretending
I don’t know what enough even means.