Sadness Wasn’t Allowed
Some boys are taught to cry it out. Some boys are taught to bury it deep enough to pretend it never asked for mercy. I was the second kind.
They call him calm.
Collected.
A good man
who never breaks the room.
But no one asks
what it costs
to keep a man quiet
when his bones
want to howl.
I was that man.
Tears made them uneasy,
so I swallowed them whole—
neat,
hidden,
forgettable.
Sadness wasn’t allowed.
So I learned rage in secret.
Turned softness inward
until it festered
into something sharper.
Grief doesn’t die.
It calcifies.
Learns to speak
in locked jaws,
tight fists,
doors closed just in time
to keep the storm polite.
They never
saw the cost:
Every sorry
I offered
when I should’ve
snarled.
Every boundary
I buried
just to be loved
without consequence.
It built him—
the quiet fury,
the caged heat.
The calm they adored
was a muzzle.
But nothing stays
buried forever.
The calm man
is only calm
until he isn’t.
Until the old tears
crawl up his ribs
like claws.
Until silence
starts naming itself
without permission.
If you hear me growl now—
if you see my softness
bare its teeth,
know this:
It’s not anger
you should fear.
It’s every ache
I swallowed
just to stay lovable
finally deciding
it wants to be
heard.
You’re not a subscriber,
you’re a co-conspirator.
This is a room where silence loses every time we open our teeth together.
Stay. Bring your confession.
Bring your version too loud for polite company.
Here, your rage is holy.
Your softness is armed.
Your boundaries are not up for polite debate.
Every poem you read here is a rib torn loose, a page refusing to stay dead.
Soon they’ll bind themselves into a living thing called Shadow Thoughts: The Silence That Kept Me.
Not tidy self-help but a mirror that won’t flinch when you do.
I don’t know when it’ll wear a spine and a barcode.
I don’t care.
It’s alive now.
Feral. Soft. Dripping on your screen whether you’re ready or not.
Stay loud enough to make the polite ones flinch.
Stay honest enough to scare the hush that raised you.
Stay. We’re louder together.
P.S.
If this stirred something in you,
it might speak to someone else too.
Feel free to pass it on.
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