A Shelf of Things I Never Said Quotes

“And sometimes,
I wonder if grief is just this
the quiet falling of things:
no one stays up to mourn.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“There is a version of me
on a bench that doesn’t exist,
beside someone who never arrived,
hands folded like questions without answers.
We do not speak.
Still, the silence grows roots between us.
The kind that twist around ankles,
that make it hard to stand and leave.
I do not know their name,
only that I’ve mourned them
like I mourn cities I’ve never seen
with a longing that makes no sense
and still doesn’t stop.
Somewhere in the unlived life,
we are laughing.
Here, I just keep glancing sideways
at the absence that fits too well
into the shape of a stranger.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“It’s strange,
we expect the dead to make noise,
as if their silence isn’t enough to fill the space.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“The shelf is full now.
Heavy with what-ifs and nearlys,
with truths I dressed as jokes
and funerals I disguised as patience.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“But the river.
The river keeps its grief.
To hide what was never meant to surface.
It remembers the way the world shifted,
how hands once tossed a coin
and whispered promises,
leaving the air heavy with words
no one ever heard.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“The soil doesn't forgive,
but it does forget.
It has forgotten your name,
but not the way I knelt that summer,
pleading with it
as if growth could be bartered
with longing.
My hands are a little earth now
lined, calloused,
carrying the scent of what almost was.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I don’t cry anymore
it’s quieter than that.
A kind of erosion,
like cliffs losing pieces to the sea
slowly, constantly,
without anyone noticing.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I used to think I was different.
But I trace her storms in the way I love
always bracing for ruin,
always sleeping with the lights off,
as if that’s how you keep the house from burning.
I started having dreams in her accent.
Started pausing before I spoke, like her.
Started carrying umbrellas even when the sky looked clear.
I mistook her quiet for peace.
It was survival.
A hush that had teeth.
Now, when I cry, it rains in my daughter’s room.
The wallpaper peels in the same corner it did in mine.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“There were things she never named,
only folded
like laundry too wrinkled to iron smooth.
I grew up watching her close windows before the wind came.
Grief, she believed, should never be given an open door.
She never raised her voice,
but the quiet she wore had weight.
It pressed against the walls.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“What do you do
When the noise that once defined you fades away.
When silence becomes the loudest thing you own.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“The sea does not bury.
It forgets.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“We didn’t say much
just watched the laundry sway on the line like old stories,
mispronounced the name of a bird
and laughed until it felt like rain.
We spoke of nothing.
Silences had grown delicious.
And I thought of all the other lifetimes
in which I never left.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I write his name in lowercase.
Not out of disrespect,
but because some distances feel softer
when spelled without weight.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I once buried a pebble in the garden
and prayed it would bloom into a person.
It didn’t.
But I visit it still.
Because some of us learn early
that silence, too,
wants company.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I made friends out of photographs
they stayed
when no one else did.
I called one “Maybe.”
It didn’t answer.
But it didn’t leave either.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“I carry her in pockets now
a photo folded too many times
the last text asking if I’m okay
her favourite lipstick shade still uncapped
and every song that dares to say her name in tune.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“You learn to tuck it into your coat pocket.
Like lint.
Like keys.
It follows you to grocery stores and funerals
and lazy sunday afternoons.
Some days it’s light,
like a paper cut.
Some days it eats your breath.
But no one notices.
You laugh anyway.
You pour coffee.
You say “I’m fine”
because explaining it
feels like bleeding for no reason.
Grief, when invisible,
grows teeth.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Some days, the light falls strangely across the floor,
and I almost believe it's trying to speak
telling me about the versions of myself I left behind.
The girl who thought
love was a folded paper note;
the boy I once called home
but forgot how to find;
the promises we buried
in the mouths of wilted flowers.
I walk slower now.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“It doesn’t knock.
Doesn’t bloom like it used to.
Just shows up
in the way someone remembers how you take your tea.
In a song that doesn’t ache anymore.
It slips between the cracks of the day
in the quiet of forgotten habits,
in hands that don’t flinch when reaching for yours.
Love returns slowly.
In mismatched mugs,
and the softness of being asked if you’ve slept.
In laughter that feels like rinsed linen
clean, familiar, light.
It’s a slow thing,
like the light that finds its way through closed blinds.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“The coffee went cold again.
You were always better at timing.
I keep drinking it anyway,
as if bitterness will bring you back.
The mug is cracked now.
Still, I hold it carefully
the way I should’ve held you.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Letter two
You are becoming a ritual.
I write to you the way my mother folds clothes soft, deliberate,
half-aware of some absence that once wore them.
I hope you read slowly.
I hope you read like you’re scared to reach the end of me.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“She doesn’t ask what broke me.
She just shows up
A mug of coffee in one hand,
a wilted orchid in the other.
The purple matches the bruise of the sky,
sun bleeding out behind the hills.
We sit with silence between us.
She lets mine grow wild.
Pours warmth into it without stirring.
When I finally say “it still hurts,”
she doesn’t say it’ll stop.
She just shifts closer,
like grief is a door she knows how to hold open
without letting anything spill.
The orchid rests between us on the table.
One petal falls.
She catches it.
Says, “even the softest things
learn how to let go.”
And I believe her.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“This skin,
stitched with the silence of each woman before me,
tightens each time I try to move differently.
My hands carry her habits
folding towels with precision,
biting the inside of her cheek instead of speaking.
I learned early that a woman’s grief
should look like grace.
When I say I’m tired,
I mean: my spine bends in the same places hers did.
when I cry,
It’s always near the stove,
as if inherited sorrow prefers
the scent of something burning.
I try to unlearn her footsteps,
walk backward through time,
but even my sorrow
wears her name.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“And sometimes,
I wonder if grief is just this:
the quiet falling of things
no one stays up to mourn.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Some nights, I sit with the ghost of who I was meant to be.
She doesn’t speak.
Just traces the cracks on my skin
like they were her inheritance.
I let her braid my hair with all the things I never became
the violin I quit,
the apology I never gave,
the summers I spent folding into silence
when I should’ve screamed.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Some nights, I still set the table for two.
Not out of habit
but hope disguised as ritual.
The fork beside the plate is a prayer,
and the empty chair,
a kind of waiting
that only love understands.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Grief has manners now.
It knocks, waits by the door.
Leaves notes instead of breaking in.
Sometimes I open it a crack,
just to say, “I haven’t forgotten.”
It nods.
And sits with me quietly, like an old friend.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Plants die when they’re forced into foreign soil.
But we keep watering it hoping it might one day call us home.
We call it growing up.
We call it survival.
We call it anything but grief.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“There is a kind of silence only hospitals understand, the kind that stands in the hallway after you hear 'we did our best' the kind that follows you home, sits at your table and eats with you for the rest of your life.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said

“Maybe these are the very moments we are living our entire lifetime in. What if there is nothing left to talk about tomorrow, we’ll be out of words and apart.'
'I hope we are never out of words then. There should always be at least one word I could say to you randomly.”
― Maimoona Abidi, A Shelf of Things I Never Said