sans titre (without title)
If I could talk about it, I would.
If I could tell you, I would.
If I knew that you would not judge me, I would tell you.
If I could press release on the burden, I would.
If I hadn’t been conditioned to carry the burden, absorb the shock; know that I would have told you.
If the consequences wouldn’t both relieve and hurt me, I would.
If I knew that by cleaning up, I would make a bigger mess for myself, you would have known. You would have known when it started. You would know that it happened again, and again.
If I wasn’t so deeply embarrassed, yet faultless, trust me, you would know. You would know everything.
If I had had the vocabulary you would have known.
If I could have been a child, if I hadn’t been wiser, far beyond my years, I wouldn’t have protected the rest of you.
I wouldn’t have taken the fault when I was blameless.
If I hadn’t been conditioned to my silence, if after all these years, I hadn’t been forced to find comfort and resolve in my silence, if I hadn’t had to put in the work to heal, if I hadn’t been strong enough to do that, if being fed your weakness hadn’t made me this strong.
If I wouldn’t be praised for being strong. I hate that.
My strength is a seed of pain, how dare you water it.
If I had the opportunity to weep, be weak, fail, blame.
If all of you didn’t interact with me like it didn’t happen.
If I didn’t still try to have a positive,meaningful relationship with you.
If I hadn’t sought, in my adulthood, the protection you did not give me as a child.
You have all dug into the depths of my conscious.
And left your shovels.
And I have been forced to dig deeper to find my escape.
& Other Long Stories 