[...the words on your tongue]

27.05.2014

Breathe in, breathe out.

Say it, I can see the words on your tongue.

Just say it, get it out,

Exchange it with the air between us.

Are you comfortable with your own thoughts?

Because rest assured, I am, I have heard them all before.

So let me help you find reprieve,

And a way to traverse this hesitation,

For it has held us in place for too long.

 

You know that moment of sheer social paranoia?

How it makes you scared to speak, to look or move?

The word “petrified” comes to my mind.

Because life has written it on the insides of my eyelids,

As I am sure it has been on yours,

Yet we close our eyes in an attempt to escape the world around us,

In attempt to escape the feelings within us.

 

Breathe in, breathe out.

Count to ten.

And you can hold my hand,

Either hand I don’t mind,

Even though I know you probably do,

And that’s okay.

But they are both all I can offer,

So I will hold them out to you anyway.

 

Even if it takes hours for you to see my body as human,

And for me to see your body as equally fallible as my own,

I will sit with you.

We can compare scars – stories of when our hearts broke,

Of when our lungs threatened to collapse from the grief we swallowed.

 

I will hold you steady so you can let your defences down,

Breathe in, breathe out…

We can laugh at what the world can’t see, what they refuse to accept.

Because laughter is what ultimately sustains us.

It’ll be okay, you will eventually be okay.

We will persevere and hopefully survive.