I want to talk about so much but it often feels like what for? Or what’s the point? Or, who will listen? Or hear, truly hear, beyond what is spoken and then fully comprehend? Or maybe not even comprehend, but share in those same sentiments, or offer up new feelings, new unexpected thoughts. Like how you’ve already lived your upcoming birthday, and how the age coming up is actually you stepping into, and living out your next year ahead, as my friend Sandra wisely explained to me on how she views getting older. I thought it was a unique lens on birth years. I wanted to share how I don’t fully understand that concept, but I chose to listen and tried to digest it instead.
I want to tell my partner who I love, that I’m deathly afraid of her no longer existing next to me, or no longer existing entirely. That my anxiety over losing yet another person I love exceeds any fun I’m having at the present moment. And so I’ll hold her hand while enjoying a comedy together then a blurry vision of a casket will sour the moment, and my heart will pierce with annoyance that the present moment escaped me yet again, but that things like death and losing people you love are inevitable. And so I return, pushing the thought as far and deep in my mind as I can shove it, until the next cozy date night.
I wanted to tell her, while watching The X Files, as she excitedly recommended, that I think aliens could also be creatures that we’ve never seen or have yet to discover, living wildly unfamiliar versions of our lives deep under the sea, completely uninterested in whatever we’ve got going on up here. What would Earth really have to offer them anyway? But I shut my mouth in doubt - at the risk of sounding dense, feeding my intellectual imposter syndrome, which keeps me from sharing lightbulb moments in large groups, or at work, hardly ever trusting my own creative process.
I want to mention to her that I wish that my company was enough, and I wish I could fill up the space that all her missing friends are not able to.
I want to shout and scream at, and shake violently by the shoulders all the men who have ever exerted their power and gone against me for whatever reason or no reason at all. Tell the male doctor who had me escorted out of my partner’s room for laying with her in her hospital bed trying to comfort her to sleep in the wee hours of the night that he’s a hateful person. Tell my mother’s evil pedophilic husband that I may not have yet forgiven him for all the pain he caused us. Wish out loud for all the men who keep committing femicide for the sake of criminal trend to never rest in peace.
I want to tell my mother how much she’s disappointed me throughout not only my childhood but this entire adulting process; email my former therapist and tell her how much I miss her and how life is significantly difficult without her guiding me through the ever-revolving bullshit; talk to the photos of my dead brother and father and ask them where they are and what they’ve been up to these past few decades—what’s the afterlife giving, à la Gen Zers; call my friends with the same enthusiasm I carry in my voice notes; read all my finished and mostly unfinished poems out loud to whoever will listen. I want to meditate freely, sing sad songs loudly, burst out laughing daily, pray that everything works out for the best and that the world resets to better, saner days.
But I remain speechless…
