Allow me to educate you:
I am a separate person from you
I am not here to resolve your issues
It’s not my job to quell your anxieties
I am free to express myself
To use whatever tone makes sense to me
If I don’t answer in a way you think I should
Guess what?
Tough fucking luck
Memorize this:
You will never know me
I will be there (have nowhere else to go)
dutifully doing what is expected of me
Keep my part of the silent agreement we’re all in
Actually, I’ll go beyond all expectations
I will be beyond criticism, beyond reproach
The outer world will see that perfect picture you are so invested in
But you will never know me
You will not gain entrance to my inner spaces
Never have my attention in any meaningful way
My heart and soul are permanently shut to you
This, I choose, and it will forever be my choice
Remember this
I know I will
“Are you a boy, or a girl?” she asked, lip curled in a grin that implied she knew but just wanted to make me feel small. It worked.
“I won’t even dignify that with an answer!” I said…
…silently, in my head.
I felt the familiar rush of shame blush my cheeks a rosy pink, and stood, frozen, eyeing the group of kids standing behind the most popular girl in my new school.
My heart pounded in my chest so hard I feared it might explode through like a fist.
That image gave me some comfort: the blood would splatter all over Susie (Jenny? Brittany?) and crowd, so there’d at least be that.
Ruing the short haircut my Mom had talked me into just before we moved, my flat-chested, barrel-like bigger-than-most-girls-my-age body, and my fair, freckle-speckled skin, I tried to think of something to say that would get me out of this encounter with some teensy shred of my dignity in tact.
This was it. The way I handled this moment would set the tone for my future in this new environment, this new social strata. I searched the memory banks of my mind for some comeback that could get me out of this mess relatively unscathed. Perhaps even ahead in some way, having won them over with my wit under duress.
Nope. I got nothin’.
I felt a bead of sweat drip from under my left arm, causing a tickling sensation that, unfortunately, made me start to giggle. Hearing myself giggle made me feel a bit hysterical, which then caused me to actually start laughing hysterically.
And so what I actually did when faced with the elite of my new school was I stood there like a laughing hyena while they stood and stared in a mix of disgust and curiosity.
Eventually, the ringleader (Alyssa? Mandy? What was her name?) flipped her blond hair and said “Whatever!” as she turned and led the rest off.
Alone again, after the hysteria had crested and eventually receded, I took a deep breath in, and gave myself a silent “Welcome to your new school, Loser!”
The laughing jag had worn me out and left me with a hollow feeling that I knew all too well.
It was gonna be a bumpy year.
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: dignify
I built a mighty fortress high
To shield my stricken soul
Lived days and nights in solitary
Untouchable was my goal
Walls kept life out and kept me in
I wandered through alone
A maze that kept me coming back
To where I was unknown
And then one day from a crack there shone
A light from within one wall
I saw a way out, I saw the way in
One by one, bricks began to fall
And from the ruins I made a house
With a door that can open wide
Now life can flow freely, as I see fit
I no longer fear what’s outside
Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: solitary
There's something under my skin
Something grainy, irritating
I can't get to it, make it go away
Want to cut it out
Feels like him, still there, still taking what's mine alone to give
A pressure behind my neck
An invisible yoke I can't escape
Can't get rid of the grip, can't get away
Can't rub away the imprint of his touch
These are the moments I despair
These, the moments that he wins
Some time ago, I decided it was time to eradicate the “glare” from my roster of habitual modes of communication.
Let me back up a bit.
I come from the sorta South, Texas. Between my southern upbringing and being a female, early-on I developed-through-osmosis the skill of passive-aggression.
Being that I grew up in a family of Olympian-level champion passive-aggressors, I became quite an expert-level practitioner this behavior myself.
Then I married a man who cannot tolerate passive-aggression. He highly values directness and being able to “feel” a person and match that to what they are communicating in words and actions. It is really important to him, for various reasons that are his own to explore and not mine to share.
He challenged this in me, and I rose to the occasion. I began to own this learned and honed behavior, to forgive myself for it, and then to make different choices.
In due time, I decided that I wanted to eradicate it as best I could from my palate of expressions. I decided that I wanted to be direct in my conflicts.
Gone would be the days that I would silently glare at someone, hoping that my glance would convey all that was burning within me.
Like all those times to the person who just cut me off in traffic. I’d drive by and give them “the look.” (Didn’t seem to really have an affect…but then again, I’d already passed by and was speeding off…) Now I also know that if someone is an asshole driver, nothing anyone else does is going to change them. If they could care about it, they would. The glare will never translate to them.
Or those times somebody is having a very loud (and annoying) conversation on their phone on the bus/street/train/restaurant. Boy, did I give them a look, and more than once, at that. (Yet they never got off that phone…) These people also fall into the category of being incapable of really “getting” it. If they could “get” why it is rude to do that, they wouldn’t do it in the first place. My glare? They won’t be able to take it in.
See the problem? That glare just doesn’t do it.
In such circumstances, it is time to use my outside voice.
To say, hey. You almost killed me there. Be careful.
Hey. You are making us all hostage on this bus.
Hey, man. You are man-spreading. Make room.
No more glaring, for this recovering PG’er.
Here I go.
Welcome to the gate to my heart.
Admire the wrought ironwork that guards my essence.
I chose it for its superior weathering properties.
It’s been in place since my adolescence.
You can look but you cannot touch:
this will be your forever-penance.
Beyond the Skinny Branches 