There are things I know about my life that I still cannot say out loud without feeling disloyal

Dear Delyara, That is one of the loneliest places to live. The truth is clear enough inside me. About the marriage. About how often I feel unseen. About what I resent. About what I fear. About where I think I am going numb. About what I have outgrown. About the ways I am still staying quiet to preserve arrangements that may no longer deserve my silence. I know these things. I do not say them. Because truth changes rooms. Because speech has consequences. Because once some things are spoken, everyone must either respond honestly or reveal how little room they ever truly had for your honesty in the first place. So I carry the truths instead. That has a cost. I can feel it in my body.