When the words shut up inside me
Nov 2, 2022
I ended Yaa Gyasi’s “Homegoing” in the same staff break room I started it in.
I haven’t written in a while. I think I’ve felt an inward pausing that’s prompted me to stay silent even though my thoughts are scratching to come out of my own head. I thought about writing when I was washing the dishes, when I was cleaning up on slow Saturday afternoons, when I felt things I could not articulate to myself, when I stopped praying, when I started praying again, when I was weepy and slept most days, when things went numb and eventually gained feeling again. Throughout all of it, I’ve been punishing myself by not writing or only writing here and there. Seldom explaining me to myself.
Originally written in March 2019
