Note: This is a part of a small collection of short pieces written when I couldn’t decipher what emotion I was feeling. There I found the “in-between.” These pieces were written quickly when my brain needed an outlet and then lightly edited later.
It’s funny how even the loudest people can find themselves stuck in silence while their body is screaming.
When hands you don’t want are creeping at and under your waistline, when a face is inches away from yours, trying to transfer the poison from their lips to yours.
All the while, two sleeping beings are the thing keeping you from doing more than pushing until he walks away. A shocked silence that is dripping in confusion.
A silence that I’ve shamed myself for more than I would like.
I’ve wanted to break the silence, shatter it with even the dullest of knives, only slightly placing blame. I wanted to mutter something to the mutual friends that would probably easily sweep up the shards of the truth right under the rug.
But I swallowed the sharp edges. “I stopped him before it was really something,” I’ve convinced myself. “I was lucky.”
But it has rarely felt like four-leaf clovers and jackpots at the end of rainbows when the silence is sometimes still ringing in my ears, my brain still trying to urge my throat to emit some noise, any noise.
I know I am not alone in this silence, but that doesn’t really comfort me. It just proves that my peers and I aren’t the only ones that need to open our mouths. We shouldn’t feel the full burden of the silence, yet it weighs on us heavier than the hands and bodies that gave it to us.
No matter how we carry it, we must know that we are strong. Let that be the push to hopefully one day free us.
Although I thought that silence weakened me, I refuse to let it keep me quiet.
Veronica DeStefano 