I have spent my life surrounded by women who had eyes that betrayed their mouths. And bodies that betrayed their words.

I learned to whisper, and to adjust my posture so other people could breathe better.

Everytime my head shook back and forth
I detached it from my neck
And placed it in his hands.
I learned how to put my feelings into body bags and weigh them down with stones I had chipped out of the mountains of expectations I created.
I would throw them into an ocean and watch myself sink into the thick, infinite darkness.

I mourned every woman I drowned.