Dec 2014
Where do all the unsaid things in the world go? Do they end up in some metaphorical scrap-heap on the other side of the earth? Do they sink broken to the bottom of the sea? Do they swirl around our heads like nervous birds, filling the space between us with tingling anxiety? I imagine that, like an exhale, these unspoken truths disperse into the atmosphere, quiet and unnoticed. Silky, mirror-fogging anguish. Everywhere; everywhere. We breathe in each other’s unarticulated desire each day, each hour, without knowing it.
Example. Two countries over, there’s a woman who is watching a man, watching him walk away from her. Watching the place where his skull meets his neck meets his shoulder, that sweet parabola, and a terrible sorrow is rising up in her, her heart pounding fast and loud, begging her to say what’s needed saying for so long. She doesn’t. She exhales, and her exhale is my inhale. I breathe in the words she never speaks. My cells and blood are filled with her silent, undeclared want.
In another part of town, two people are together. Maybe they’re best friends. Maybe they love each other, have been in love with each other, for years, softly, without realizing it. Maybe they are watching a film, but the dialogue is spinning past without comprehension and the actors have become nothing more than a simple blur of color and anatomy. Maybe one of them has rested her head on the other’s shoulder. Maybe they’re each thinking to themselves of reaching for the other’s hand. Maybe they almost do, flexing and unflexing their fingers as they try to work up the courage, but stop themselves at the last moment. It’s infuriating, isn’t it? Someone should say something. Do something. Anything. But we never do, do we? We eat cereal after sunrise and lace our shoes and live our little lives and inhale a thousand others’ heartache without knowing a thing, and we fill volumes with all the things we will never let see light.
My dear, you must see why I don’t want us to be like that. God, I can’t bear the thought of it. I wasn’t meant for burying or suppressing. My spirit likes living aloud. It enjoys being bright with hunger and pain, and doesn’t mind being in love. If we part like two passing vessels without ever intersecting, it will crumble. It will burn. If we allow each other to slip away, we will be caught in a great tumbling mess of felt things that were never put to words, like rain or bodies or ash.
Don’t let it happen.
This is what say to myself, over and over, repeated suffering, hands on the bathroom counter while I lean over it and look my reflection in the eye, petrified: Don’t become another lost kiss, another neglected love, another pair of people that could have come together but didn’t.
Be the truth that escapes the scrap-heap. Be the I love you that makes its way out of the mouth.
Example. Two countries over, there’s a woman who is watching a man, watching him walk away from her. Watching the place where his skull meets his neck meets his shoulder, that sweet parabola, and a terrible sorrow is rising up in her, her heart pounding fast and loud, begging her to say what’s needed saying for so long. She doesn’t. She exhales, and her exhale is my inhale. I breathe in the words she never speaks. My cells and blood are filled with her silent, undeclared want.
In another part of town, two people are together. Maybe they’re best friends. Maybe they love each other, have been in love with each other, for years, softly, without realizing it. Maybe they are watching a film, but the dialogue is spinning past without comprehension and the actors have become nothing more than a simple blur of color and anatomy. Maybe one of them has rested her head on the other’s shoulder. Maybe they’re each thinking to themselves of reaching for the other’s hand. Maybe they almost do, flexing and unflexing their fingers as they try to work up the courage, but stop themselves at the last moment. It’s infuriating, isn’t it? Someone should say something. Do something. Anything. But we never do, do we? We eat cereal after sunrise and lace our shoes and live our little lives and inhale a thousand others’ heartache without knowing a thing, and we fill volumes with all the things we will never let see light.
My dear, you must see why I don’t want us to be like that. God, I can’t bear the thought of it. I wasn’t meant for burying or suppressing. My spirit likes living aloud. It enjoys being bright with hunger and pain, and doesn’t mind being in love. If we part like two passing vessels without ever intersecting, it will crumble. It will burn. If we allow each other to slip away, we will be caught in a great tumbling mess of felt things that were never put to words, like rain or bodies or ash.
Don’t let it happen.
This is what say to myself, over and over, repeated suffering, hands on the bathroom counter while I lean over it and look my reflection in the eye, petrified: Don’t become another lost kiss, another neglected love, another pair of people that could have come together but didn’t.
Be the truth that escapes the scrap-heap. Be the I love you that makes its way out of the mouth.
