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I Don't Remember How Old I Was When It Started
when i began growing in instead of out,
becoming more and more tangled in my own existence,
like ivy coiling and folding over on top of itself.
because
there was a time when i gave away pieces of my life
the same way i exhaled air, without fear of ever running out of breath
or needing any of it back. i traded my stories
without ever realizing that i could have kept them to myself.
but, i wanted to give because i thought that all i needed
to survive was the response my words drew from a listener’s eyes.
until,
one day, i started coming up short. i would reach down into my
core and come up empty handed. before then, i hadn’t noticed all the
holes in my skin where my life, my thoughts, my poems were
leaking out between my pores. and so that night, as i curled up to fall asleep,
i tucked my chin in close to my knees in a last attempt to keep it all inside
of me—where no one else could see my dreams as i reached out to reclaim the
secrets that were long gone.
instead, i gathered my ankles, my fingers, my lips, my cheeks, and my lashes
(the things that had been seen too many times to bother to try to hide)
in hand and used them to start building walls around my chest
and form a cage for my heart.
but
no one ever told me how lonely it feels on the other side—
to live in a world where all anyone ever does is build and build
until there are barricades miles high made of plastic so thick that
it hurts to breathe, weighing us down like bricks tethered to our lungs
so that every time i tried to speak out, it felt like the words were being
crushed before they even have a chance to escape.
then,
i remembered. i remembered what it felt like to voice the truth
through un-gritted teeth and i knew that the only way out was to
first let my mind free.
yet,
i didn’t want to go back. i didn’t want to ever run my mind dry again by
giving until i had nothing left. so i did something that i had spent
so many years terrified to do, i asked for other people to join me.
it began
as a whisper. as soft waves rushing in towards the shore,
running smoothly over the rocks and although no one could
break apart any singular word, we all knew that we no longer stood alone.
and soon,
something amazing happened. the chorus of our songs
changed pitch as new voices began weaving their way into the thick
gauze of sound until we were in unison, transforming the gentle waves into
roaring gusts of water, each with an unfathomable force.
together,
we stood so strong that the bases of our cages began to
erode and people felt safe enough to emerge from their shells again,
cautiously at first, but eventually running towards each other at full speed
with outstretched arms because by then we had all learned that nothing hurts like
being alone.
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