When I was a small child
I had no brothers and sisters
And was often alone.
And sometimes,
Although as I grew older and began to loathe silence
This happened less and less frequently
I would have a thought
And it would ring in my head clear as day
And I would stop and wonder to myself
REALLY wonder
If I'd said it out loud.
I would convince myself that of course I had.
But that odd moment of doubt
Would linger in the pit of my stomach
And then I would decide that the only way to dispel the unsettling feeling
Was to say something-anything-aloud and prove,
Once and for all, that I could.
And then, of course,
I'd be sure I'd said it
And able to move on with my life unbothered.
So I would speak
Deliberately.
I would draw breath, and say whatever sentence popped into my head
And then I would wait a moment,
To be sure it really took.
But
See
Since I was all alone
Within that moment,
I became unsure all over again-
Had I REALLY said anything at all?
I'd meant to say something,
I'd tried to say something...
But had I?
There was nobody to ask.
There was no way to check.
It created a distinct sense of... otherness.
Of strangeness
That wouldn't leave
And within moments I would be so mixed up
That my skin would crawl with this paranoia
That maybe
Just maybe
I didn't exist
And I hadn't said anything
Because something that doesn't exist can't have a voice
To say something WITH.
This would continue
Until, hopelessly upset, I would run downstairs to find my mother
And cry to her
For what she thought
Was no apparent reason.
That, friends,
Is a big part of why I
Loathe
Being ignored.
And also probably the underlying reason
That as a grown adult, I never sit in silence.