Granite Stillness

Some days, I want to be as still as granite.

Like the stone countertops Mom once admired but couldn’t afford.

I don't want to worry or to feel.

I don't want to wrestle with this racing mind,

because feeling too much, too fast, causes heartbreak.

-

I wish I could switch off the noise in my chest,

To stand like a statue: impassive, observing.

To be utterly silent.

Not just in speech, but silent in the canyons of my skull,

Where "what if's" carve their endless paths,

Where every thought is a river of emotional vibration.

-

When I was nine, I cried. My dad said, "Suck it up."

Tyler was my best friend and his family was moving to North Carolina.

Tyler didn't cry. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked away.

I thought that made him stronger, better than me.

-

And then there was a void.

Where we had once ridden bikes, where we had laughed,

there was loneliness and sadness.

-

He was the first boy I wanted to kiss.

Not in a romantic way, but with the same desperate urge that draws young boys to light firecrackers.

He was older. He had kissed girls and even had a girlfriend- once.

(Or so he said)

I was jealous and in awe.

-

I remember the summer sun on his blonde hair and the pull of his deep blue eyes.

We spent hours swimming and afternoons wrestling on the trampoline in his backyard.

I remember how he bragged about his sister and her college friends.

Things I didn’t yet understand

-

I remember that one night, when he found his dad’s gun and pushed it against my chest

Tyler’s hand steady and careless

I cried

And he laughed until he realized he had done something wrong.

He looked at me with empathy and regret.

And I pretended I was okay

I didn't want to be too emotional.

Too much.

-

Now, years later, I still have a void

It breathes.

Alive and dead at the same time

With Tyler’s careless hand pressed

against the place where fear became a habit.

The place I learned to call my stillness.

And I have never once been still enough.