There’s a certain weight to unrequited love. It doesn’t shout but it lingers. An uninvited guest that sits too close, too long. You don’t even notice when it starts. Just a glance that meant nothing to them, but everything to you. A smile, an unspoken moment. But it’s never more than that. And it doesn’t need to be.

The quiet becomes heavy, suffocating, like an echo of something that was never spoken. You don’t talk about it, but you feel it in the spaces between your thoughts, in the pauses of your breath. It’s in the way your heart moves too quickly when they’re near, then too slowly when they’re gone. You don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s there. A dark, silent thing, wrapped in the shadows of all the words you never say.

And then there’s the quiet sting when they’re with someone else,when their voice shifts in a way that doesn’t include you, and there’s that tender ache again, pressing softly, just enough to remind you and you’re just… there. Watching, pretending to breathe normally, pretending you’re fine. But you’re not. It’s a slow, dark burn. One you’ve grown used to, but never learned to name. Not to them, not to anyone. They don’t see it, and you’re okay with that. Or maybe you’re not. But what does it matter? It was never theirs to carry.

There’s a kind of beauty in that, isn’t there? The way love doesn’t need to be acknowledged to be real. The way it stays, hidden in corners, curling like smoke in the back of your mind. It’s dark and unnamed, and maybe that’s all it’s ever meant to be. A quiet, unspoken thing, that never breaks but never fully heals.

And in the end, maybe it’s enough. Maybe it’s all you need. The unrequited love that doesn’t ask, doesn’t demand. Just exists. Like a shadow that never fades, but doesn’t scare you either. It’s just… there.