Letters From The Porch

Stories written between dusk and dishes.

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[lettersfromtheporch]

Say it.

Because sometimes

there is no other way.

My thoughts are a dancer—

quiet,

graceful,

spinning,

stretching—

trying to give shape to words

without ever letting them be spoken.

I could live there.

I have lived there.

In the space where I do everything

except say it.

In that place, time disappears.

No seconds.

No minutes.

Only movement.

I twisted my body into meaning,

hoping someone would recognize the pain

by the way I held myself,

by the way I moved.

Hoping they would hear

what I refused to let my voice touch.

My mind has been screaming for years.

The words sit thick on my tongue—

heavy,

crowded,

never crossing my lips—

while my body performs

this careful, controlled choreography

called survival.

But I have been dancing

without stopping

for thirty-six years.

My heart won’t slow down.

My muscles ache.

The exhaustion is bone-deep—

the kind that settles in and stays.

I can’t keep going.

So the movement stops.

And barely breathing—

almost afraid of the sound—

I finally

say it.

[paper-wounds]

via

[lettersfromtheporch]

Scared… into silence.

You didn’t always do it loud.

You didn’t need fists or shouting—

you used precision.

Slow.

Calculated.

Malicious.

You knew which buttons to press.

My sister.

My brother.

My mother.

You threatened them

so I would feel the fear land in my own chest.

You saw the savage part of me—

the protector.

The one who steps forward.

The one who takes the hit so no one else has to.

And you picked at it.

You poked my anger,

fed it,

provoked it—

then pointed at me and said,

“See?

Crazy.”

“Too emotional.”

“Too much.”

I wasn’t aggressive.

I was advocating.

But you called me argumentative

for having a voice,

for refusing to shrink,

for thinking my opinion mattered.

You tried to grind me down into quiet.

Used fear like a leash.

Kept me small so I would stay.

You were a craftsman—

a skilled carver.

You took something beautiful—

strong,

solid,

wild,

free—

and you cut it down.

You carved into me

piece by piece

until I fit the shape you wanted.

Silent.

Small.

Manageable.

A fragment

of who I was born to be.

But listen—

I am not there anymore.

Every excuse I made for staying quiet

was just another layer of the damage

you caused.

I won’t carry that silence for you.

I won’t protect you with my fear.

I won’t be scared.

I won’t be quiet.

You don’t deserve my protection.

I am allowed to be angry.

I am allowed to speak with fire in my chest.

I am allowed to take up space.

I am allowed to speak.

And this—

this—

is me speaking.

[lettersfromtheporch]

sometimes people talk about motherhood exhaustion like it’s just missing freedom.

missing sleep.

missing who you were before kids.

but that’s not the kind of tired i carry.

my exhaustion comes from dragging my childhood behind me like a ghost while trying to make sure it never touches my children.

it comes from fighting every instinct i was raised in.

from teaching my children softness when i learned survival first.

from speaking gently after being spoken to like i was hard to love.

from forcing myself to stay present when dissociation raised me.

from apologizing to my children for things nobody ever apologized to me for.

people call it “breaking generational curses” like it’s some pretty inspirational phrase you hang on a wall.

but they never talk about how violent it feels internally.

how some days it feels like killing the versions of people that were built into you before you ever had a choice.

my father woke up every day with choices too.

not just drugs.

cruelty.

rage.

absence.

pain passed from one set of hands to another.

he chose the things that hollowed out the people who loved him.

and the hardest part is understanding abuse does not end when the moment ends.

it bleeds into everything after it.

into the walls.

into the children.

into the way love gets learned.

i carry the aftermath of those choices every day of my life.

but i wake up with choices too.

i can choose numbness.

i can choose anger.

i can choose silence.

i can choose to make my pain someone else’s inheritance.

but every single day

i choose my family instead.

i choose to stay.

i choose to listen.

i choose to apologize.

i choose to heal even when healing feels ugly and exhausting and unfair.

because i know exactly what it feels like to grow up in the path of someone else’s destruction.

and my children will never have to wonder if they were loved more than my demons.

[lettersfromtheporch]

There are parts of me that only exist between dusk and dishes.

Parts of me that emerge while sitting on the porch with the sound of crickets echoing in the dark.

The versions of me that stay quiet all day finally begin to speak there.

Softly.

Honestly.

Like they have been waiting for everyone to fall asleep first.