"Is it better to speak or to die"

The weight of words left unsaid.

If you read this title and clicked on it, maybe it’s because you don’t have the complete answer to that question, perhaps you do, or maybe you just want my thoughts on the subject. It’s a question that has lingered with me— not as a simple curiosity but more as a persistent ache. When I first heard it in “Call Me by Your Name” by Luca Guadagnino, it felt like someone put some words on a feeling I didn’t know was there. Should we risk getting known and potentially meeting disappointment or should we keep a comfortable distance from feeling?

I have often wondered if there could be more regret in the words left unsaid than in the words that were mishandled. Silent can be seen as much as a shield than as a prison. But how will you use it?

✧༺♥༻∞

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The comfort of silence

Silence feels safe. Like a warm hug. Like I could cradle in my bed and stay with my thoughts. When silent, my desires and feelings are mine alone. Mine to judge, mine to analyze, mine to deal with. My thoughts remain untarnished by the reactions of others. I think there’s a comfort in letting my feelings live and die in my head. However, silence is not always synonymous with peace. Silence can be suffocating. There’s a thin line between keeping yourself safe and isolating yourself.

Would people be able to love you if you let them see you fully? Silence is a way to control the narrative—to keep myself from facing the uncertainty of another person’s response. It is a refusal to surrender. Yet, in holding back, I often feel like I’m abandoning parts of myself that deserve to be heard. The comfort of silence is a cold comfort—a stillness that freezes possibility. If I dare say it, no matter how inconvenient and messy your thoughts are, perhaps it’s better to speak than to let yourself suffocate.

The death of speaking

To speak is to risk the death of illusion. There is a version of me that lives in the minds of others—a version shaped by the things I don’t say, the emotions I keep contained. When I speak, that version shatters. The person standing in front of me no longer has the luxury of guessing who I am; they see me as I am, vulnerable and flawed. Why can’t I just exist as a concept?

The moment I speak I am no longer in control. It’s something that makes me distraught. There is a death in that—an end to the imagined version of what could be. Then again, maybe it is a necessary death— the end of self-deception, the collapse of fantasies that only survive because we show our true selves. A chance to be known for who we are, not who we pretend to be.

✧༺♥༻∞

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Which death is worth more?

It often feels like I am choosing between two kinds of grief— the ache of never being fully known or the pain of being known and found potentially lacking. The decision is, what kind of person would you want to be. Think of the people you’ve wanted to love, the words you wanted to say but didn’t. Think of the missed chances and the ways you convinced yourself that silence was strength. I can’t help but wonder, are we protecting ourselves from hurt or are we simply avoiding the fact that intimacy requires risks?

In a way, maybe both speaking and silence are necessary forms of dying. Maybe they are both required to learn what it means to be fully alive—to risk loss, to face rejection, to live without retreating behind the walls of our minds.

-Maëlys-lilas

✧༺♥༻∞