There's that hungry little jagged little relentless little string of smoke, like something that's there but also not really, curling round and round my organs and squeezing and grasping until my breath is the only thing that I can focus on. My breath is the only thing that I can focus on. It is; it is; it's not.
How do I tell her? I'm afraid of being demeaned, diminished, belittled, for something that I can't help. I'm afraid of being seen for the first time; I'm afraid of remaining unseen for the rest of my life. I'm afraid of being afraid, yet I also have the option not to be, and I'm afraid of that, too.
The words don't unfold perfectly, although I did make sure to crease the sentences as neatly as I possibly could on the piece of paper in my room. They are stilted, broken- I hate how I sound because I sound like what I am.
The confession doesn't come quick. It comes like it's been dragged out of a scared teen's mouth by someone who tries too hard to be loved; it arrives fitfully, hesitantly, but it arrives nonetheless. Does the weight feel lessened? Not really. The immense burden of carrying something that glistens like a kaleidoscope but is thought of as dirty, as secretive, as Not In My House Thank You Very Much, has been replaced with the desert-like knowledge that now she has to learn to live in a world that she loves but that doesn't love her back. (She already knew both of these things, of course. She'll always bear both of these things, of course.)
She doesn't understand, not really. Not in the You're Not My Child sense, not in the It's Just A Phase sense, but maybe in the Fresh Prince "He a little confused, but he got the spirit" sense. I don't feel seen; I don't not feel seen. Glimpsed but not quite recognised, I suppose.
YOU ARE READING
idk
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