YES, I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THAT
The tap had needed a plumber for months. It made me groan just thinking about it...but still, that drip...
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I had stopped noticing it.
Until this morning.
I sat by the window and tried to look outside, but the sound kept pulling me back.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Each drip accompanied the pounding I felt in my left temple and the throbbing pain that started behind my eyes.
I absentmindedly reached into my pocket looking for a sweet to settle the pounding, and then something caught my eye in my peripheral vision...a tiny movement along the sill.
There was an ant on the sill. I disliked ants. They carried a faint, sharp smell that I could never quite place.
It was carrying something much too large for it. I stared, fascinated...transfixed for a second.
So cute! So brave!
I watched it for a while.
It stopped.
Turned.
Tried another way.
Smart little fella.
I smiled.
I don't know why.
Perhaps because it seemed to know what it was doing.
Far better than I was doing.
I looked out at the sky.
Blue.
Unreasonably blue. How cruelly beautiful in a world so dark at times...
And then, without warning, I thought of you.
Yes, I have something to say about that.
I was a good girl. So good.
That's what I remember.
No.
That's what I was told.
There is a difference.
I think there is.
Sometimes I still don't know.
I did not do anything at all.
Anything?
I did everything.
Every single thing...every time.
Yes, I did.
What did you do?
I kept my mouth shut.
I opened it when you told me to.
And then shut it when you thought I was too much.
I said I was fine.
I said I understood.
I pretended I did.
I said it didn't matter.
But it did.
It did.
It always did.
And pretending made it so painful.
I knew it mattered.
I just didn't know what to do with knowing.
And really, what did I know?
Because knowing is not the same as saying.
Is it?
Is it???
I learned the difference.
Slowly.
The way you learn the shape of a cloud against the bluest of skies.
You look at it long enough.
You know it will change.
You just don't know when.
I learned how to read a room without looking at anyone.
My eyes always averted, always downcast.
A pause.
A breath.
I felt it all.
The scrape of a chair.
I heard it like thunder in my ears.
The silence after a question.
Because what came next was a slap and the sting it left behind.
I knew when not to speak.
I knew when to leave.
I knew when to stay.
I knew when your voice was going to change before it did.
Because the room got colder and you lowered your voice just enough to make me feel the danger.
That was a useful thing to know.
But it never saved me.
It kept me out of trouble because I knew how to run. And if I could not run where my legs would take me, I would run where my mind could not find me.
Mostly, it kept me by your side.
You could make a quiet room feel very loud.
You reveled in it.
You grew bold.
And I became careful.
There is a difference between being quiet and being careful.
I know that now.
I didn't then.
I could hear your name without anyone saying it.
My body knew.
My mind would arrive later.
Always shattered but not broken.
Sometimes it didn't arrive at all.
That was useful too.
Because I hid.
There are things the mind does when it has nowhere else to put them.
It moves them around.
Like a jigsaw puzzle dumped onto a table.
Changes the order.
Misplaces a detail.
Makes one thing larger.
Makes another disappear.
There were days when I was certain.
Other days, I wondered if I had imagined it.
That was the worst part.
That was the worst part. I even doubted my own mind.
Not knowing which version of myself to believe.
Because you buried me so deep into the earth that I began to mistake the darkness for home.
Yes, I have something to say about that.
I have a rat that died behind the wall.
I don't know when it happened.
I only know the smell.
At first, I thought it was something else.
Something in the kitchen.
Something in the bin.
Something that would go away if I opened the windows.
But the smell remained.
You can cover the hole.
Paint over it.
Move the furniture.
Open the windows.
The smell remains.
I suppose that's what happens when something is left somewhere too long.
It changes.
So does everything else.
I forgot.
That's what I told myself.
I forgot.
No.
That's not true.
I remembered everything.
I just forgot where I put it.
The words.
The anger.
The things I should have said.
The things I did say when nobody was listening.
I put them somewhere.
A place to put everything that had nowhere else to go.
A small box tied up with a pretty bow.
I like that image.
It makes me laugh now.
Not because it's funny.
Because of the absurdity of it.
As if something ugly becomes less ugly because you tied a ribbon around it.
Perhaps that's what I was doing.
Making things pretty enough to live with.
A difficult childhood.
A difficult person.
A difficult day.
A misunderstanding.
A temper.
A mistake.
Wait! Did I just laugh?
Hah! I heard no sound...
Anyway...
Words are very useful that way.
They can make almost anything sound survivable.
I wrote things in the margins of my books.
Nobody noticed.
That was the point.
Tiny words.
Sometimes one word.
Sometimes half a sentence.
I would write until there was no room left.
Then close the book.
There.
Gone.
Except it wasn't.
Nothing was ever really gone.
It was only somewhere else.
Yes, I have something to say about that.
You always wanted to know what I had done.
What did you do?
I don't know.
I know exactly what I did.
I stayed.
I made excuses.
I learned which things could be said and which couldn't.
I learned to apologize before I knew what I was apologizing for.
I learned that saying nothing could be safer than being right.
I learned that being right didn't always matter.
Sometimes being quiet mattered more.
Sometimes being good mattered more.
Sometimes making someone else comfortable mattered more than whatever was happening inside me.
And sometimes—
I hated you.
There.
I said it.
I hated you.
I hated myself for hating you.
Then I hated myself for forgiving you.
Then I hated myself for pretending there was anything to forgive.
I don't know which one hurt more.
Perhaps that is another word we use when we are tired of carrying something.
Doesn't matter.
It didn't matter.
But it did.
It always did.
Yes, I have something to say about that.
I think I spent along time waiting for someone to tell me that I was allowed to be angry.
Nobody did.
So I became good at anger that had nowhere to go.
It went into the walls.
Into the pages.
Into the songs.
Into the spaces between words.
It came out sideways.
It came out years later.
Sometimes it came out as laughter.
Sometimes it came out as silence.
Sometimes it came out when I was alone and didn't know why I was crying.
And sometimes...
sometimes...
it came out in my voice.
You didn't know that.
Or perhaps you did.
Perhaps you heard something in it that I hadn't yet understood.
Perhaps that is why you always wanted me quieter.
I don't know.
No.
I do.
I know.
For years I could not make a decision without wondering what you would think of it.
Even when you weren't there.
Especially when you weren't there.
You had left the room.
But you hadn't left.
That is a strange thing.
To spend years arguing with someone who isn't there.
To hear a voice that no longer has a mouth.
To ask permission from an empty chair.
I don't do that anymore.
At least, I don't think I do.
I still catch myself sometimes.
A thought begins.
I stop it.
Then I wonder—
who told me to stop?
Yes, I have something to say about that.
I was a good girl.
I did what I was asked.
I did what I thought was expected.
I did what I thought would keep the peace.
I did what I thought would keep me safe.
And somewhere along the way, I became so good at it that I couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Between what you wanted.
What I wanted.
What I was afraid of.
What I had become.
Maybe that's the thing I am still trying to untangle.
Not you.
Me.
Or perhaps not even me.
The girl who was still there somewhere beneath all that carefulness.
The one who knew something was wrong before she had the words for it.
The one who learned to swallow the words anyway.
The one who thought being loved meant learning how not to disappoint you.
The one who thought being good meant being quiet.
The one who thought if she could just get everything right, perhaps the room would stay warm.
Perhaps you would stay kind.
Perhaps nothing would happen.
She was wrong.
She was a child.
There is a difference.
I wish I had known that then.
The tap is still dripping.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I should call the plumber.
I don't.
I look towards the window.
The ant is gone.
The sky isn't.
Still blue.
I resent that shade of blue, but...
Still there.
I sit with it.
And for a moment, I think about the girl I was.
Not the good girl.
Not the difficult girl.
Not the girl you wanted me to be.
Just the girl.
I wonder what she would say if she were sitting here now.
Perhaps nothing.
Perhaps everything.
Perhaps she would look at me and ask the same question.
What did you do?
And this time, I think I know how to answer.
I lived.
Not quietly.
Not perfectly.
But I lived.
And I have spent enough years making myself small enough to fit inside somebody else's idea of me.
I don't want to do that anymore.
The words are here.
They have always been here.
In the margins.
In the songs.
Behind the wall.
Under my tongue.
Waiting.
I don't have to make them pretty anymore.
Yes.
I have something to say about that.
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