why do you share so much on the internet?
i asked myself
why do you share so much on the internet?
i hear them ask me
why do you share so much of your story to people you don’t even know?
i feel the question all around me
settling on my skin
like the air i breathe
like the wind that carries it to me
me: why do you share so much on the internet?
me: i like to write
me: but why do you write things like you do?
me: i think my story is important
me: it’s so cringe
me: you share so much of your life. so much of your story.
me: people don’t need to know that shit
…
me: maybe you should stop
me: maybe you should stop
me: real mature
me: real mature yourself
me: i share it for her.
me: who?
me: i’m only just getting started
i look at old photos sometimes. i scroll through to 2010 on my phone and see the girl preparing to graduate high school, wondering whether god is real, broken-hearted from her high school boyfriend and broken-hearted from her family and broken-hearted from having to carry it all and broken-hearted from having to live up to the expectations of the church family she feels she needs because who else is there? just god. she leans on this immaterial figure. she needs it. there’s nothing else.
i scroll to 2012. i look at photos of journals where i screamed “this isn’t right” onto the pages only to smile brightly for the photos with him and to hold hands in church services like this was exactly where i was meant to be as though my body wasn’t screaming for me to listen and stop and run. run baby. run.
i scroll to 2013, to 2014, to 2015. i see the years pass by. i see the gaunt face of a girl afraid. a girl trying so hard to please people and be what they tell her to be. a girl trying to hard to put the face on that they want her to.
i see 2016 and 2017 and 2018. i watch the girls face transform further. i see her grow. i see her struggle. it’s all written in the eyeliner lines and foundation covering her skin. it’s all written in the way her eyes sparkle, or don’t. i see her loneliness coming through the thin half smile she wears. i see the fear. i see the same broken-hearted girl trying to make it all work.
and then i see her shift.
freedom.
in 2019. in 2021. in 2022. in new ways each time. she shifts to freedom. she shifts to joy. she shifts to power.
and i remember.
i write these words for her first.
i tell my stories for her first.
and i hope they help you. but i know they help her.
words
and stories
are power.
my words
my stories
are power.
because i was robbed of my choices
by my family and by church leaders and by co-workers and by men.
i was robbed of my choice
but i was never
robbed of my words.
no one can ever take the words, the story
from me.