Defiance

When standing up straight is already a daily battle, there are days when things come down on you one after another after another and you find yourself crushed flat, unable to move further and breathing dust if you’re breathing at all. No one sings under these stones.

When Giles Corey stood accused of witchcraft, they sentenced him to death by crushing, or life if he would lie for it. He would not. “More weight,” was all he said. “More weight,” until he said nothing at all.

Under any stones, there are choices. Other endings.

Read. Read other people’s thoughts about thoughts. Turn your music up. Write. Pull words out of your cracking heart. Write them in blood but tell what is happening to you. Weep. Make flowers out of paper. Make anything. Draw. Draw Icarus in flames. Draw flowers on your arms. They may hurt you—refuse to do their work for them. Refuse. Fight back. Speak. Demand more weight. “Is this the best you can do?” 

You are no better than your flaws, no stronger than your weakness, but you were still standing before this night fell. You do not have to be patient. Wait it out? No. No and no and no again; they will not take you silent.

For Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Woolf

Oh, but the words that drive claws into your chest and rake downward. That hit you like a thunderclap and physically drive you away from the page— On the train, you let it all fall, the book into your lap and your head against the seat. At your dining room table, you stand up, shaking your head, refusing. The words that catch your arm and pull you back. You find yourself seeing through the page the way you see through faces. I know you. I know you. Hurts, doesn’t it?

Don’t do this to me. I’ll do it to you. I might, but I don’t know how.

Breathing Space

Restaurant booths are a problem because I want an escape route but there is always the possibility that I will end up trapped against a wall. My father is an unapologetic person, never concerned about how much space he takes up. That’s his hand, stretched across my section of the table. Hand: fist, relaxed. Knees spread, feet planted. That’s his backpack. This is the wall. I can’t move further.

My sister’s voice takes up more space than my father’s body. Even he has to retreat. Questions, concessions.

“What are you writing lately?”
He’s talking to her. She’s writing a book proposal. She’s happy. She says so. This summer is awesome, she says. She’s so happy. Things are going so well. I’m happy for her. There’s no room for me here. I surrender the craft. At this table, I am not even a writer.

He would deny that. If pressed, he would say he doesn’t ask me because he knows I don’t want him to, which is true. I have nothing to complain about. I am not writing. I am not here.

This is family.

No. No, this is me. My jealousy and uncharitable thoughts deserve no breathing space. Fittingly, I can’t breathe. Not that it shows.

This is my father. Before my sister arrived, we went to the grocery store. He said I am a grudging conversationalist. That I don’t give back. That I lack the skill of letting people know I care. I spoke of my inability to connect, of how I am inaccessible because I cannot access. “I don’t understand.” He said it’s the same for everyone. I said it’s not.

My father loves me and he is right. There are basic things that I don’t know how to do. There are other things I do know how to do. I know it’s true when he says that everyone feels alone, but if my isolation is the same as everyone else’s, why does it show? He himself said it shows. He knows he can’t touch me. Everyone knows they can’t touch me. Everyone is alone, but we are all alone in different ways. This way is mine.

My sister is happy. My father is not. I live where I live and no one can come here, not even you.

Except like this. Look, I can put my words directly into your head. I’m doing it now. Maybe I have no right, but I have done it. Welcome. Stay as long as you want. There’s room for all of us here.

Dilemma

Maybe I should start a blog.

No. You’d think I’d mean this, wouldn’t you, but I don’t. Four of my friends have grabbed themselves a Wordpress or something equivalent in the past month because they want to be writers. They start Facebook pages, too, to go with the Wordpresses or the Bloggers or the I don’t know what young people are calling them these days. Encourage “likes.” Because that’s what you do if you want to be a writer. You start a blog.

Already being a writer is out of the question. You are not one, it seems—no matter how much writing you do—if you don’t have an audience. More specifically, an audience made of people who do not necessarily know you. Who do not start out knowing you. They know you through your work. Or they will. Or they would, if it was me and this was a blog.

It’s not, you know. The point—See, the point is to share it. “Hey, look over here.” That was what this was going to be, at the beginning. They’re very clever, my friends. Good with words. Sincere. I could be clever, maybe. That was the plan. It failed, but still— Social media. Word of mouth. The link up there still works; I can post it places even if I’m not actually being clever anymore and just…

I can’t do it, though. This isn’t a fucking blog. I had—Oh, I had the wrong idea and I can’t twist my thoughts into the right shapes, I guess, because every single one of these posts is a letter to someone no matter how they start out, and what if a Someone should find me out? Find themselves? Catch me saying what I mean?

Sometimes I can’t say things when I want to. Make that all the time.

This is not a letter, but also it is.

I am not not-a-writer because I don’t have a fucking audience. I am not a writer for other reasons. Does writing for yourself make you a writer? I don’t know. I don’t write for myself; I write letters. It’s all I’ve ever done. What we have here is a failure to communicate. You see, I can’t speak.

Maybe I should start a blog, but what would I write there if I can’t abide the thought of an opened envelope? Of truth? Of someone else’s eyes? Maybe I should forget the whole thing. Of course, I’ve said that before.

.

It’s down to this: I can’t find myself under all this doubt anymore—as happens frequently, I’m afraid—and I don’t see a way forward. I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to say of myself that I have integrity and believe it. All I see now is an idiot child-thing who will one day be someone that used to want to be a writer. 

But you believe in me. You always have. I cannot see anything about myself worth keeping, but you want me here. And I cannot build bridges or open doors, but I trust you as much as I can trust anyone. It’s down to this: I would rather keep promises than break them. I would rather create one fragile, worthless thing than nothing at all. I do not share or understand your faith, but I would rather prove you right than prove you wrong.