I am a talker. Get me started on telling a story and just know I’m telling everything. It could be mundane, and I will spin it into something funny, or thought provoking, or just off-the-wall. And even with as much as I’m willing to reveal about myself, when it comes to certain emotions, or when I feel unsafe, I shut all the way down.
I think back on the endings of my relationships, and there is always something critical I held back. I don’t know if my honesty would have made any difference, but in the moment it just felt too risky to reveal it all.
Today’s Story…
…feels like that. Like, If I share this part of me, what happens next? Do we meet in the middle, try to figure things out? Or do we still end and I’m left holding this grief?
Maybe some things are just better left unsaid.
“If longing gives you poetry…”
by Katrina Mitchell
I see him standing in the back of the room when I finally find my spot on stage. The room is dark but he always shines bright, with his large eyes and bright blue t-shirt. I didn’t think he would still come. We hadn’t spoken in a few weeks, and at this point all I could do was convince myself it was for the best. That we weren’t meant to be.
I adjust the microphone and stare out into the crowd. My eyes find his again. I’m waiting, expecting him to leave, but he doesn’t move.
Someone in the crowd yelps an encouraging “Woo!” So I know I need to begin. I take a deep breath.
“I spend nights awake, staring at the side of the bed you used to occupy
Wondering if I cut this mattress in half if I could also cut off my emotions
This yearning, this need that presses against my ribcage
That sits on the top of my tongue but refuses to be spoken
That is embedded under my fingernails but still somehow out of reach
without you I am missing an appendage, a part of me I never knew I relied on so heavily until it was taken.
I’m limping.
I’m learning to walk again
without you.”
I step away from the mic, because like I said in the poem, there are some words that refuse to be spoken. There are some words that are just for him.
He’s still standing there, arms crossed, expression blank. He heard me, but did he really?
I nod and say thank you, then I leave the stage. I breathe deeply in the narrow backstage hallway, then I walk out of the emergency exit.
