Hold Still, Speak

I am not a darling. I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

This is where you can find your soul if you dare. Where you can touch that part of you that you’ve never dared look at before. Do not come here and ask me to show you how to draw a face. Ask me to help you find the wind.

I know my head isn’t screwed on straight. I want to leave, transfer, warp myself to another galaxy. I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else. There is a beast in my gut, I can hear it scraping away at the inside of my ribs. Even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me. My closest is a good thing, a quiet place that helps me hold these thoughts inside my head where no one can hear them.

Here’s how I feel: People take one another for granted. I never realized how big a deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment of your life and think, soon this will be over. But I understand more now. About the way life works.

Maybe it was the way we acted, or spoke, or just moved. The way we would look at something and both have the same thought at the same moment, and turn to each other at the same time and start to say the same thing.

I would like to say that a million possibilities are running through my mind and that I’m just having trouble choosing which brilliant exit line to use, or which joke to deliver that will make all the guys laugh, make the tension in the room vanish. But really, I’m just trying to think of one possibility. I’ll do the first thing that comes to me.

You don’t really think about it. It’s just something you do to get ready for something else.

You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons. The sun stopped shinning for me is all. The whole story is: I’m sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can’t get away from it. Not ever.

I imagine what would happen if everyone turned their regrets into wishes, went around shouting them. Signal lights would change at intersections and as the people on opposite sides of the street stepped off the curbs, they would call to one another - finish college! exercise three times a week! never start smoking! tell your mother you love her! wear a condom! make peace with your brother! take your dog to the park! stay in touch with your friends!

It isn’t the happy ending I had dreamed up, but it’s all a part of what I’m working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.

You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.

When people don’t express themselves, they die one piece at a time.

It’s easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.

Art without emotion is like chocolate cake without sugar. It makes you gag.

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?