Doublespeak

“I was taught courtesy
and pleasantries
and much polite doublespeak, 
but they forgot to teach me
how to brutally honest be.

Being a woman online,
I quickly learned to 
end all my sentences
with the ‘safe’ tongue-out emoji,
lest I compel
a fossilized piece of turd (Mea Culpa obviously), 
to write repugnant things 
from behind the comfort of his 
warped warm screen.

I’ve tried too hard
for more than twenty years,
to fit myself into sentences
too small for my thoughts.

I’ve tried and I’ve failed
to sound rational and bright, 
and stay true to what I was feeling at the time.
I’ve failed to save parts of my young self — 
my writing spells H-Y-S-T-E-R-I-A I’m told.

I’ve failed to write between the lines,
the good old vocabulary
of our times
often demanded my assistance,
in replying to casualties of ignorance;
and the words that flew out
from under my furiously-typing fingers
were ones that hadn’t yet been invented.

I was paid in the currency of happiness,
for storming out in a summer dress,
after hiding the bags below my eyes
from too much crying at night,
with thick radiant concealer.

I was methodically taught
to come up with harmless lies
“Yes, why do you ask, It’s nothing, I’m quite alright !”
and other expressions I’d never then heard of — 
‘say-this-so-they-won’t-think-you’re-crazy’ I’m told.

For a timeless span I lived as a nothing,
I hid my wounds and
mastered the art of verbal camouflage.
I told my bruises
to forget they were there,
so it’d stop hurting
even if just for a short moment.

This is why I write,
it lets me rip open my heart — -
even though I know this might kill me,
I’d rather sink with the truth,
than stay afloat with lies.

I feel as if I’ve just grasped the meaning of my life.”

• Koni.