The Words I Wish You Wrote
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
There are letters
I have written for you in my mind—
whole pages of contrition and clarity,
inked in the handwriting
I wish your heart knew how to use.
In them,
you finally understand
the weight of what was said
and all that was never spoken.
You say you’re sorry.
You say you see it now.
You say you were wrong—
that the fault line didn’t split beneath me,
but began with you.
I imagine you tracing the past
with gentler fingers,
unpicking the knots you tied in me
without ever noticing
you were pulling the string too tight.
In these letters,
you name the harm,
you honour the truth,
you hold the fragile shape of what was broken
without asking me
why it cracked.
And though none of it is real,
I still find myself inhaling the ash
of those unwritten sentences—
breathing in the soot
of every apology
you’ve never given,
every revelation
you’ve never reached.
It gathers in my throat
like something I must swallow
to stay alive,
even as it scorches me.
The words I wish you wrote
are smoke without origin,
a fire that never burned
yet still leaves me coughing
in the dark.
Some nights,
I can almost feel them—
the ghost of a message
you will never send,
the phantom warmth
of a love you never learned to wield.
A tenderness imagined,
a recognition longed for,
pressed between my ribs
like a note slipped into a pocket
by someone who never existed.
And still,
I keep hoping—
not for the letter itself,
but for the impossible miracle
of you becoming someone
who could write it.
Until then,
I carry these unsaid words
like cinders in my lungs—
each breath a reminder
of how much it hurts
to hunger for a voice
that may never call my name
with understanding,
or sorrow,
or love.
The words I wish you wrote
are turning me to ash.
And yet—
I keep reading them
in the silence.
Keep My Words Alive
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
