I Wrote Down The Things I’m Most Afraid to Say
The other night I was having drinks and dessert with a friend when I told him about my lack of motivation to put pen to paper. “I’m not writing anything good,” I’d said. “I feel as if I don’t have anything real, anything honest, to say.” He was unmoved. “That’s okay,’ he reassured, ‘there’s nothing wrong with that. It’ll be fine.’ While thankful for his support, I was only mildly appeased.
It wasn’t until I got home I realized something, I did have something to say. Hell, my curiosity knows no bounds, I always have something to say. This was something different. In the past, whenever I’ve struggled to write I’ve always asked myself this — what is the thing I’m most afraid to say out loud? I’ve found it’s the question that triggers the most vulnerable truths in my writing; find what you’re hiding, rip it open, and allow yourself to release your own pandora’s box.
It’s a trick that’s always worked. Until now. As I sat in my living room that night munching on left over carrot cake, I began to understand my issue is not that I have some one thing I’m scared of saying, but that I’m scared to say anything at all. After taking a hiatus from sharing my work publicly, it’s almost as if I’ve forgotten how to use my voice. Maybe it’s time to no longer just ask what I am most afraid to say, but rather what am I simply not saying? So, that’s what I did. Here are the answers —
I think I could love you again.
I don’t think I know how to let people get close anymore.
What if I don’t have anything left to say? Anything left to write?
I miss Vegas.
But I can’t live in that city alone. I can’t be in that city alone.
I think I miss sex.
But I’m so happy not to be dealing with everything that comes with sex.
I miss my best friend. Both of them. But one more than the other.
Why the fuck did you do that?
Why the hell did we let us go?
Who were you? Really?
I keep thinking of that one night at that hotel on the strip, how sensual we felt, yet how barbaric, and how far away I’ve moved from that life.
I miss the way he touched me.
And yet, I crave being touched in ways no man has yet to reach.
All the men I once loved have lost their passion. Have I lost mine too?
I think I could love you again.
Could I love you again?
I am so grateful for the ways in which his words touched me, for the tears of comfort he brought. I am so thankful for him.
And yet, I think he would have killed me. And then, killed himself.
Why can’t I let people get close?
Take me. Make me yours.
He lost his mom last year. Or the year before. And all I can think is I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. How deeply I wish that none of it, none of it that night years ago never would of happened.
I still remember that day in that coffee shop. I still feel it. Still hear it.
You knew. Out of every single person, every last one, you knew what the leaving, what the silence would do, would mean, to me. And it’s fuck you for it.
That shit was personal. It was always personal.
When he talked about power and ambition, “I want it with a little blood on my shirt.” Mmmm. Say that shit again, it turns me on.
No matter how much I have always wanted to belong to them, I have always belonged to myself.
Where have all the passionate men gone?
I can do this. I am doing this.
Does this story, our story, my story, have a happy end?
“Where the fuck did you come from?” …
… Where the fuck did you go? •
