Two Poems
Ariana Guadagnino
What I Meant to Say
I meant to tell you that the house still smells like cumin and soap,
that I press my fingers into the worn wood of the table
where you once rolled cigarettes,
your hands quick, sure, as if they had always known
how to break something open without shattering it completely.
But what I meant to say, what I never say,
is that I’ve been learning how to leave.
How to give you an open ending,
with no opportunities to fill up the gaps.
I trace my name into the condensation on the window,
watch it fade as the kitchen warms.
I wonder if you ever wanted to go,
if the walls ever felt too tight,
if the silence after an argument
settled in your chest the way it does in mine—
thick as wool, heavy as a swallowed stone.
You tell me I have grandma’s laugh.
What you don’t say is that I have her quiet, too.
Her tendency to let rooms fill with ghosts,
to press her grief into the dough,
knead it until it disappears.
I meant to tell you that I see it now,
the way we carry what we never say—
in the way we set the table,
in the way we rinse our plates clean,
in the way we hold our breath when we leave
but never call each other back.
What I meant to say is I love you, I do.
But love should not always mean staying.
I Was Not Meant to Bloom
I was not meant to bloom.
Not in that house where love was a locked door,
where silence sat heavy on my chest,
where her voice could strip the paint from the walls,
where I learned early that hunger
was more than just something your stomach did.
She was a storm with no rain,
a mother by title, a ghost by presence.
I grew up reading the weather in her face,
knowing when to disappear,
when to brace for impact,
when to be still enough to be forgotten.
And yet—
here I am.
Not a shadow, not a wound,
not the sum of what she took.
I built my own hands from the absence of hers,
stitched my own softness from scraps.
I was not meant to bloom,
but look at me now—
roots deep, petals wide,
alive despite it all.
Ariana Guadagnino was born and raised in Toms River, New Jersey, and is expected to graduate in 2028 with a PhD in pharmacy. From the moment she could pick up a pencil, she has used any blank surface to express her thoughts. Whether it was through childish doodles or pieces of poetry like this, the world has been her canvas.
Ariana wrote these poems in a course taught by Leslieann Hobayan, who selected these pieces for inclusion in WHR.