What We Don’t See

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

It is always easier to point.
To say, Why is the roof slanted like that?
Why is the painting dull?
Why is she still selling eggs at the corner
when she’s old enough to rest her bones?

But we don’t see the night the roof was built.
How it rained hard, and the father
hammered faster,
his boy handing nails one by one
like small gifts.

We don’t see how the painter
stood by the window,
listening to dogs bark at nothing,
and still painted,
not because she thought it would be loved,
but because it was the only way
she knew how to keep breathing.

We don’t see the woman
counting coins by candlelight,
stirring rice slowly,
waiting for her son to come home
from a shift where no one learned his name.

People will always say things.
They will speak from their clean shoes,
from windows with whole curtains,
not knowing what a torn cloth
can still cover.

But the one who struggled
—he remembers—
how he prayed for a tiny miracle,
how he cried alone
when the day finally gave in,
like a tight jar opening.

Those tears?
Not of weakness.
Of release. Of having held on
longer than anyone knew.

Criticism is cheap.
It does not cost breath,
or bruises,
or bowed heads at 3 a.m.

But one day—
life taps even the loudest mouths.
And when it does,
they will learn
how heavy it is to carry something invisible
through a world that only sees
what’s already finished.

And then they, too,
will grow quiet.