The Language We Never Learned

We loved in translation—
you, fluent in silence,
me, always searching for subtitles
beneath your breath.

I spoke in metaphors,
you responded with pauses.
Between us,
an ocean of meaning
lost in the tide.

You offered comfort
in quiet presence,
as if stillness could warm
what was freezing inside me.
But I needed words—
small lighthouses
to guide me through your dusk.

Your hands said everything,
but I could never read palms.
My letters to you,
opened but unread—
you smiled, but the message never reached.

We were two dialects
of the same ache,
learning love like a foreign phrase
memorized,
but never quite lived.

You mistook silence
for softness.
I mistook silence
for leaving.
And between those mistranslations,
our sentences crumbled.

I tried to rewrite us
in clearer lines.
You erased the page.

Now,
we pass each other
like untranscribed dreams—
me, still rhyming
you, still silent.

And though we never screamed,
never slammed doors,
never drew blood—
we spoke fluently
in goodbye.

- Khushi Kaul