Angelou wrote this in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, the 1969 first volume of her autobiography. The sentence has specific weight because Angelou herself spent almost five years mute as a child, after a trauma she could not put into language. When she writes about untold stories, she is writing from inside one.

The insight is not emotional. It is somatic. The unsaid does not evaporate politely. It takes up room in the body. It shapes posture, appetite, sleep, the way you respond to a certain tone of voice. Silence is not absence. It is a tenant, often a bad one, and it pays rent in symptoms. What we call getting it off your chest is literal. The chest was actually carrying it.

Cats vocalize when something is wrong. A cat with an untold complaint will stand at the foot of the bed at 4 AM and deliver it until somebody acknowledges receipt. We treat this as annoying. It is also functional. A cat does not have a drafts folder of unsent meows. We keep a drafts folder so full the phone groans under it. The cat's strategy is older, and probably smarter.