Cat Got His Tongue

I am a deeply flawed man. I would like to be more outgoing than I am, able to say with my mouth the things I can say on the page, but I don’t have the luxury of time when I’m talking. When I’m writing I am allowed to think before I speak, my hesitation and clunkiness appear as only tiny spaces between the words. My gruffness of manner is only visible when I want it to be.

On the page I can be deliberately vulnerable, and when I miss-speak, which is often, I can delete. I can rewrite for the proper amount of tenderness.

When I was younger I often would say nothing. I ran possible scenarios of speech through my head, rejecting one after another as flawed, stupid, bothersome, and not close enough to what I was trying to say. After long years I have learned to shut that off, allowing myself speech, a voice. It is that censor I probably fear the most, still hear it’s incessant voice telling me to shut up less I say the wrong thing.

I would like to be a more complete person than the one I am. I would like to appear tender to my wife, to speak freely of intimate things, person to person. I never learned how to do this. I was taught instead my thoughts and feelings were beside the point.

The page is the only door to the cage I’ve found, or if you buy the God thing, I was given. Over time I learn little by little to open my mouth. I once taught someone how to cry, to open their mouth and let out inarticulate sound, the groan to deep for words. That, I am good at. It’s the words that stick in my throat.