Now I Speak

Written through reflections of the #MeToo campaign.

With tape across my mouth I struggle silently.

Sometimes flailing my arms in an uncoded sign language that I hope people can understand.

And other times sitting quietly,

wondering if it’s something about which I should speak.

What if I were to speak?

One simple word after another.

It’s not such a big thing.

Just words in a certain formation, expressing a certain message.

And yet I can’t.  

Because who is to believe me?

How am I to be trusted?

How is it not to be just a picture, a feeling, a sensation of my imagination?

Where’s the proof?  

Where’s the justification?

And so I wait.

And I wait.  

And I wait.

Hoping someone will see it inside me.

That I won’t have to declare it.

Instead, it can be the answer to a simple, caring, inquisitive question.

But, it’s not there.

It doesn’t come.

People don’t see it, chose to be blind to it or not to believe it.  

And I can’t hold onto it much longer.

I’m tired.  

I’m tired of erupting on people who don’t deserve it.  

Of lying to myself and others about problems that are not problems,

they’re just branches that stem from rotten roots.

I’m tired of not pulling out the bad fruit, the bad root, the moment I notice it is starting to decay.  

Of not trusting my own body when it feels the toxins are beginning to enter my veins.

And I so badly want you to see.  

To know.  

To understand.  

To trust.  

The moment it comes up.

I don’t want to have to fight.

To defend.

To believe.

In myself, when others think that I’m a feeb.

Why don’t you see?

Why don’t you know?

Why don’t you agree?

Well, okay.  

You don’t.  

Perhaps you do, but you’ve blinded yourself, so you don’t.

We all do that.  

I understand.

You are afraid.  You’re jealous.  You’re weak.

You want to feel strong.

I see.  

I see this NOW.

All those years I questioned myself and I wondered, am I crazy?  

Am I blind?  

Do I not see clearly?  

I was mistaken.  

It was you, not me.

You gave me eyes with a painted image, which I could not see through.  

It told a story which I followed but was not the truth.

And as my body contracted back from the pain and the disgust,

I turned my eyes inside and saw something else to trust.

Now the paint has fallen from my eyes, and I see the world with new sight.  

Something you are still struggling to do, and deny.  

And after all those years of waiting, and wailing, and yearning

for you to follow and agree.

Now, I turn silently,

without drama,

without doubt,

embracing my fear.

And I stand for what I know to be.