With reference to silence opposing speaking up, how much license do you have as an author to constructing a truth even when the information is restricted?
“There is always something to say, even when words can’t seem to find you” but I was not listening. I sat motionless, there was nothing I could do with this feeling. I was not supposed to be talking to him and especially about this. The feelings of doubt swelled up in my belly like a sickness. I remained silent. Across the table from us, a couple where exchanging in light conversation. It was fluid, flowing effortlessly and it came to me in snippets. What should I do to suppose what we’ll be done? I gave up the notion, and sat sitting there spectacularly bleak and dumfounded by the answers that evaded us.
He’d come there perplexed and confused by my manner, and I’d crossed an ocean to find him and let him know that what I’d found abroad, what I’d found there, shocked and surprised me. Imagine entering into the mind of someone from so long ago, reopening wounds by a simple greeting. I greeted him with force as soon as I saw him, I crossed the room, I poured into his arms with a passionate embrace. Secret languages. Without words, we walked. I spoke in a significant shimmer, I danced afoot the islands of his pain. I gave him my all. I wanted him to know me more than I ever was, could ever seem, and I came to him in a wasted dream.
I’d cut from myself my hair, my purpose, and I’d wrapped a grubby shawl of mohair and beatnik beads swinging, he’d have to curtail judgement. He’d harboured too much resentment to accept this change mildly, but I didn’t mind. Marble and granite we were; him smooth and assured, my rugged bliss. I blistered him. I stationed a fern at the foot of his mountains. I saw some vision of us dancing together.
I saw children. They were dancing like us, dancing to their own beat. God I wish I could be a child again, the feeling of being carefree, the feeling of not knowing what you’re going to do tomorrow, what you’re going eat tonight, what you’ll watch on TV. The days where nothing got in your way, the days where life wasn’t trying to kill you at every step you took. Life was just life, and that’s the way I wanted to live it, but life isn’t so easy for you or I.
I’d cut from myself my hair, my purpose, and I’d wrapped a grubby shawl of mohair and beatnik beads swinging, he’d have to curtail judgement. He’d harboured too much resentment to accept this change mildly, but I didn’t mind. Marble and granite we were; him smooth and assured, my rugged bliss. I blistered him. I stationed a fern at the foot of his mountains. I saw some vision of us dancing together.
I saw children. They were dancing like us, dancing to their own beat. God I wish I could be a child again, the feeling of being carefree, the feeling of not knowing what you’re going to do tomorrow, what you’re going eat tonight, what you’ll watch on TV. The days where nothing got in your way, the days where life wasn’t trying to kill you at every step you took. Life was just life, and that’s the way I wanted to live it, but life isn’t so easy for you or I.
Life cannot wait to tear you from limb to limb, let you know how much you’re not worth the sanctity that is called life. It wants to remind you of the way that you screamed at your mother for not being as perfect as you wanted her to be, and it wants to remind you of that awkward statement you asked a celebrity who has seen many other people exactly like you, but each time it likes to replay the scene. “Oh, fancy seeing you here!”
You are such a God damn embarrassment. They run through your head, every waking moment, every time you think of that one celebrity, you think of that moment, and you want to die. Every second of your life when you remember that moment, you want to die.
And so you sit across from him at this coffee shop that you’ll never be able to walk by again without this memory, and you clutch at words that refuse to reach your mouth. You breathe in and hate that his scent is so familiar. The air catches in your throat and you’re not sure if you’ll ever be able to exhale again. You’re not sure if you want to. He has no right to know, and knowing will hurt him. But he wants to know. And what he wants, he demands. Like he has always demanded. And like always, you feel obliged. You want to be friends and yet you never want to see his face again –if only he could have a different face. Different hands. Different shoulders. A different gait and different voice. If only his chest wasn’t so tied up in your memory. If only his chair wasn’t slightly higher than yours, making you feel smaller than you already do.
And, as usual, you return to your thoughts, ever present, especially at the times they are least invited. They let themselves in. You lost the keys so long ago now that and hope of locking it is far gone. At this point you know they are just housemates, and you pay all the rent. Even in moments that should be happy, they are there, dragging you down, telling you that he knows he is bigger than you. He chose that seat on purpose, because he knows it. Even if you were to find happiness, it will only be fleeting, so what’s the point? And you try to push through those thoughts. You know that they aren’t true. But it’s hard.
I stayed silent, got up and walked away.
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