When I’m sad or in pain, I won’t tell you. You may figure it out on your own; you might know me well enough to see through the thin veil that I hide behind. Or maybe I’m so transparent that even my most hidden feelings are in plain sight. Even so, I won’t tell you.
My not telling you doesn’t mean that I hold it in; that I’m silent; that I put everything in a box and put the lid down tight. I might do that but then again I might not. Sometimes I scream alone in my house where only my cat can hear it. Sometimes I rant and words pour out of my mouth like poison. Sometimes I crush something soft in my hand – like bread or maybe a flower; Something that can be crushed. Recently I started tearing paper before adding it to the recycling. Occasionally how I feel will come out as a poem or song – a rhyme that carries with it that which was poisoning my insides and at the same time heals the wounded flesh.
My not telling you doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to know. Sometimes I wish you would notice that I’m here, that I feel, that I need. But what good will telling you do? You’re busy, and I’m a pain. I irritate people so much just by existing. My presence grates people and I get on their nerves. If I try to speak my words come out wrong and are misunderstood. They make things worse not better. You knowing is worse than you not knowing. Knowing angers you; makes you feel guilty or responsible or some other bad thing that somehow becomes my fault. Even if it is just in my head. I see how you tighten your face, I hear your tone change from warm to ice or fire. I tell myself that I am to blame.
My not telling you doesn’t mean that I am swamped with hate, or guilt, or something else that you should worry about. I am not about to slit my wrists, take a bunch of pills, or in some other way harm myself. That you think I will just makes me more silent. I censor myself so that you won’t worry. If you are worried then I end up having to carry that as well – pick it up, whether I’m meant to or not, and try to figure out what to do with it. If you worry then it makes everything worse, not better. If you ask, I tell you what you want to hear so you will just go away.
My not telling you doesn’t mean that I’m self-sabotaging and constantly pulling myself down. Telling you means that I will be told not to feel sad or be in pain; like it’s not important to feel such things or that the experience leading to those emotions should somehow be negated or erased or removed from existence. They are important and valuable and deserve to be expressed.
My way of expressing myself doesn’t have to be the same as yours for it to be valid. If I am screaming, it doesn’t mean that I’ve lost control and need someone else to control me. It means my pain needs to voice itself and be heard. If I am rhyming something dark and foreboding it doesn’t mean that I’m suicidal; it means that my pain is being transformed into something else – something dark, yes, but also something wonderful. Creative. Vibrant. Real. If I am crying, it doesn’t mean that I have to be comforted so that I stop; it means that there is an ocean inside me needing to flow naturally through me and roll out onto my flesh. It unclogs the hidden pool inside me so that it doesn’t stagnate. It frees up muscles I didn’t even realise were clenched.
My way of expressing myself is healthy; it feeds that within me that needs to be fed; it makes me more human and less like some lost wraith. My writing was born in such emotion and continues to be fed and nourished by it. Some of my most beautiful and creative pieces have started here. The poetry and song that just erupts from the emotion is transformative and takes on a life of its own. Feeling pain and sadness leads to feeling other emotions – excitement, joy, gratitude, contentment, and a whole bunch of others. Like colours standing out more with a black background they become more vibrant and I see and appreciate them so much more.
I’m not writing this to lecture you, and I don’t need you to lecture me about it either.
I need you to understand and accept that I am a divine human being; I feel and express how I feel in my own unique way. I live, and dance, and sing, and scream, and rant, and howl, and rage, and laugh because I am alive; I am vibrant; a being of energy, a play of shadow and light. I embrace my darkness so that I may also embrace my light, my fire, my glow. Both are me – and the many shades of grey that live in between.
There are things that I do, or like, or say that you don’t understand – that you will never understand. That’s OK. There’s a lot about you I will never understand too. That doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
One last thing.
I love you.
All of you.
Even those dark shadowed spaces that you try to hide from me. They are precious because they are part of you.
And I love you.
(C) Xander Hunter August 2021
Green and Grey 