I stand in the silence, what unsettles me is not emptiness itself but the way I keep discovering unfinished corners in me, dull little hungers and timid little resentments,
I stand in the silence, I admit there are days I reach for people not from love exactly but from panic that I might have to feel my life without decoration,
I stand in the silence, am I wanting company or am I begging for an easy escape,
I stand in the silence, and the first thing I learn is how quickly fear begins when I start turning away from what I already know is always here…
I watch my own face, and the stale list of defects I polish in secret as if self-contempt were a form of discipline instead of a habit that keeps me obedient,
I watch my own face, and I hate how familiar that cruelty feels, how easily I call myself secondhand and shoddy when what I really mean is frightened, unfinished,
I watch my own face, did I flinch because the truth hurts or because the language is too cruel,
I watch my own face, and I stay with the ache long enough to separate what is real from what is merely an old wound silencing in my voice…
I follow the thread, and I understand how easily I act as if my struggle is uniquely embarrassing, when in truth so much of what humiliates me is painfully just ordinary,
I follow the thread, and this does not make my pain smaller, but is another sly way I keep myself central even while pretending to feel broken,
I follow the thread, can I let myself be ordinary here without turning that into another insult,
I follow the thread, and I feel the lonely room grow wider when I stop treating my own bruised mind like an exception to the rest of the world…
I study the closeness, and I notice how I become softer around what flatters me, impatient around what asks me to learn slowly instead of rewarding me for what I already know,
I study the closeness, and it embarrasses me to admit that I often call myself misunderstood but in reality is refusing to confirm the version of me I rehearsed in private,
I study the closeness, am I listening to what is happening or only to the story I prepared,
I study the closeness, and the more honestly I watch myself in relation, the less I can hide that make me feel deep without defending until it becomes clear that depth without truth is only distance in disguise…
no noise is loud enough
an old wound speaking
painfully ordinary and woven
dragging my patterns into
deep without making me truthful
