the need to say.

i got home tonight positively alight with the need to put pen to paper.

to expel the clawing, clamoring words.

it's been so long since i've felt the immediacy of that push--the inner-gnawing folding the stomach in on itself.

but the need to write, the words, they were nothing if not fragmented. cutting shards.

and where to begin?

i am not so patient. and i am not so strong. and i can't wait. i want to. but i can't. because it's fair to no one. i have to let this one go. cast it up to the fates and move on. trust that if it's meant to be, it will. was it just one lie that was told? or many? were there things misremembered and confused or were they just not remembered at all? i worry it's all too far gone. worry i'll never be good enough or pretty enough, that'll we'll never meet as equals. and i know this penchant i have for speaking honestly, for saying everything, can alarm and undo, but it's as much who i am as the dark moles littering my skin. it cannot be rubbed off or snuffed out--i've tried.

really, i'm not so strong--a common mistake. and the turmoil and disease of contradictory thoughts, well, i struggle with that, am wounded by that. perhaps i could choose the bits i want to believe--listen to the gut. but i am human, and woman, at that. and the thoughts, the warring words, they're just not enough. i'm not asking for more. that would be unfair. but know this: i am as terrified and fallible and deeply insecure as anyone else.

and so i offer it up. all of it. i throw my hands up, casting it to the wind, trusting the dust will settle as it must.