Unsent Texts, Things We Never Said

A love letter to the things we don't say, and how closure can feel impossible when the conversation just... stops.

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that lives not in screaming matches or tearful goodbyes—it lingers instead in mere and absolute silence. In the messages we type out, stare at for hours, and never send. In the punctuation of paragraphs left unfinished in our Notes app. In the voice memos we record, replay, and then delete. These are not door slams or blocked numbers. They are the fading, the unsaid, the “Maybe I shouldn’t” that jams itself into our hearts and keeps us awake at 2 a.m. Humans crave resolution, beginning, middle, end. We want to understand why someone left, why they didn’t choose us, why we weren’t enough, why we can’t seem to move on even when everything rational tells us to.

The truth of the matter is, not all stories have clear endings, some just stop mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-feeling, mid-possibility. And we’re left writing and rewriting the rest of the story in our heads, in our journals, and in those unsent texts that say everything, but also nothing at all. The “I miss you but I shouldn’t,” the “This hurt me and I don’t know how to tell you,” and the “Did I ever mean anything to you?” Are thoughts that outlive the moment, they are full of everything we couldn’t say, either out of pride or fear or self-preservation. They’re the emotional debris of almosts and could-have-beens. They are love letters to versions of us that loved without logic and hoped, without hesitation.

Joan Didion once wrote “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” And maybe that’s the core of it—the unbearable irony. We craft stories not out of facts, but out of silence. Out of absence. Out of the things we wish had happened and the words we wish we had the courage to say. We build entire narratives from glances, pauses, and memories that feel more like dreams now than anything real. That maybe—if we had just sent one more message, just found the right words—everything might’ve turned out another way. That they’re still thinking about us too. Because if we can imagine it, maybe we can survive it. But imagination, for all its beauty, makes a ruthless companion. Given that closure never arrives because it doesn’t come from them—it comes from us.

Often, we grieve people we never really had. And that kind of grief is maddening—because what we mourn isn’t just a person. It’s a possibility. Imagination, unlike reality, has no limits, it romanticizes and replays, it builds a version of them that may not have even existed, but feels real enough to miss. And in those late-night hours, the brain doesn’t care about logic—it wants to believe that maybe, maybe, if you had just said something different, maybe if you had sent the message, maybe if you had made the call—it would’ve ended differently, because unsaid words are our last tether to something that has already slipped through our hands. They are a refusal to fully let go. A quiet rebellion against closure we didn’t ask for. But the hard pill to swallow is this: sometimes, even if we had said everything, nothing would’ve ever changed.

So we hold the words inside. We write them anyway. In journals, in Notes, on the back of used paper. We draft the texts knowing we won’t send them, not because we’re weak, but because we’re finally learning that some things are better left unsaid—not out of cowardice, but out of self-respect—out of healing, out of the quiet wisdom that not every open wound deserves being addressed. This isn’t to say the ache goes away. It doesn’t, not entirely. But with time, it softens. The words stay with us, but they don’t own us. We begin to understand that closure isn’t a conversation—it’s a decision. A reclaiming. A tender, painful acceptance that sometimes, we won’t get the ending we wanted. But we can still write our own.

To everyone holding onto unsent words: you’re not alone. There is bravery in the silence. And maybe one day, you’ll read back through those drafts and realize they weren’t for them after all—they were for you. A record of your heart. A testament to how deeply you felt, even when it went unnoticed.

Maybe we don’t get the ending. Maybe we just learn to carry the silence with a little more grace.

And maybe that has to be enough.

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P.S.

I stumbled upon this in my Notes the other day—an old message I never sent to someone I once called my best friend. It’s what sparked this entire essay. It’s messy, it’s unfinished, but I think that’s what makes it real so I’ve chosen to share it.

This was the ache I carried.

This was what I never said.

hi, i don’t even know what i’m trying to say here. i haven’t been having the best time lately. i just keep thinking about how you left and made new memories with people i introduced you to, and how you’ve been avoiding me. i’m not even sure why. i’ve heard things you’ve said about me, and if i ever did something that hurt you, i swear i never meant to. i’d really like to talk about it, because you were my best friend, and i truly treasured what we had. we used to tell each other things we didn’t share with anyone else. and now it’s like we’re strangers. we don’t even say hi when we cross each other in the hallways. i don’t understand what i did that made you stop talking to me or why you started leaving me out of plans with the people i introduced you to. honestly, im frustrated because of how easy it seemed for you, and how quickly you replaced me. mostly because of how little you seem to care. i still can’t seem to swallow the thought that maybe you never cared about me the way i cared about you.
truthfully, i miss you, and i hate that i do.
i think that’s what frustrates me the most.

- L.