For always

There’s a part of me that I keep hidden, that I just can’t talk about. I pride myself in being open and honest, if not with others, at least with myself. But there’s this… thing, this thing that’s been bubbling beneath my surface for I’m not sure how long - maybe for always - and I simply haven’t been able to discuss or even acknowledge it until now.

I like when she speaks in those universal tones because it makes me feel less alone, less desperate, because when I say it, well it’s just me and I say a lot of things, but when she says it, I believe her. Because she speaks with confidence, because she can see things that I can’t, because she can see that I can’t speak, because she’s proved herself only to me in ways that only she and I know.

Sometimes, in my more reckless moments, I try to negate my trust in her, to rationalise it away because of worthless questions like, if I don’t trust myself, how can I trust someone else? A ceaselessly questioning mind coupled with a high susceptibility to the judgement of strangers. The truth is that she gives me hope. It’s small and fragile, soft. A small puff of cotton wool, but it’s something.

I can’t think about it too much. There’s much that I won’t say. I’ll unravel it though, slowly. Until it disperses and I come unblocked; until it comes undone, but I, thankfully, remain whole. In the meantime, I’ll stuff some white fluff in each ear, with a view to drowning out the noise between them.