The Things That Strangle

A pen quivering above a page, a thought drips hesitantly, like sweat in the heat of fear. Water does not quench this, the dry around my voice that stops my sound before it reaches the world. When I reach into the heart of me, my words lay covered under a quilt of words others have used to describe me, a patchwork identity: stupid, worthless, asexual. In the space between creativity and the paper that holds my words, there is a wall of voices, judging – my mother laughing at the angst of a tortured attempt to understand sexuality, pretty girls noting every flaw I’ve ever hid deciphering my secrets on the bathroom walls – these are the things that constrict my throat, stop my voice.