One of the reasons I enjoy writing so much is because I really, truly suck at saying stuff. [Most] Anyone can talk--open your mouth, make the sounds that make the words--but actually conveying meaning and thought and emotion--that is hard. I can tell you what happened to me today. I can tell you what I saw and did and said, and that's easy enough. But don't ask me what I thought. Do not look me in the eye, with your back to a brick wall, and ask me to say feelings, to admit to holding such huge, dangerous, volatile things inside myself and turn them loose in the air between us.
"Don't ask," I said, still exhaling the end notes of that not-at-all-funny laugh, the one the borders hysteria on three sides. "You open that door, you never know what will come through. And I'm not responsible for all the thoughts that come into my head." Especially lately, but I don't need to mention that. And hearing myself be this honest, even behind the thinner half of a bad joke, makes me want to cry and laugh and sing and scream and fall to all the little pieces, to show you how guilty and broken I feel and how much that hurts. I want to tell you that I'm not sleeping well again, that I'm eating too much and not enough, that I cried yesterday because I just felt so lonely. I want to ask you why my friendship wasn't enough, why he didn't just call me, or anyone, or just stop for a second and ask someone to hold him. I want to ask. You don't know.
I have resolved never to smoke anything ever again. I haven't had a drink since it happened--I am afraid I will find the bottle's end and never come back. I have had sex since it happened, but only once and I felt so guilty afterward, so shamefully alive, that I spent the rest of the night on the couch. I could not tell you why. I don't think I can even tell you now, even though your back is to the brick wall and you might be just as broken as I am, maybe. I can't tell you that your steady gaze is pulling all my broken parts up through the thin thin shell of my composure, and that is why I am shifting impatient, waiting to be gone.I am falling apart and I can't tell you that. I can't tell you. I can't tell you goodbye.
"Don't ask," I said, still exhaling the end notes of that not-at-all-funny laugh, the one the borders hysteria on three sides. "You open that door, you never know what will come through. And I'm not responsible for all the thoughts that come into my head." Especially lately, but I don't need to mention that. And hearing myself be this honest, even behind the thinner half of a bad joke, makes me want to cry and laugh and sing and scream and fall to all the little pieces, to show you how guilty and broken I feel and how much that hurts. I want to tell you that I'm not sleeping well again, that I'm eating too much and not enough, that I cried yesterday because I just felt so lonely. I want to ask you why my friendship wasn't enough, why he didn't just call me, or anyone, or just stop for a second and ask someone to hold him. I want to ask. You don't know.
I have resolved never to smoke anything ever again. I haven't had a drink since it happened--I am afraid I will find the bottle's end and never come back. I have had sex since it happened, but only once and I felt so guilty afterward, so shamefully alive, that I spent the rest of the night on the couch. I could not tell you why. I don't think I can even tell you now, even though your back is to the brick wall and you might be just as broken as I am, maybe. I can't tell you that your steady gaze is pulling all my broken parts up through the thin thin shell of my composure, and that is why I am shifting impatient, waiting to be gone.I am falling apart and I can't tell you that. I can't tell you. I can't tell you goodbye.
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