Monologue: Neglect and Words

You want to know what haunts me? Words. My own words. The ones I bleed onto paper, in a notes app, in lines, sentences, paragraphs, quotes, monologues, poetry, the ones I shaped with trembling hands, often a headache, flooded tear ducts and too much tenderness. They spill from me like a blatant offering, like a desperate plea for something… anything… to echo back. But nothing ever does. Nothing ever will. I wrote for them. Her. Him, them… Pages upon pages, ink-stained fingers, scorched and dry eyes from typing on a phone for multiple hours… exhausted nights. I wrote them into verses, sculpted their laughter into metaphors, painted their pain in hues only I could see. I made them immortal, gave them space in the one place I’ve always considered sacred… my damn words. My CHOICES of words technically, the way I shape them in my desired order…MY words! Which have been my sanctuary, my battleground, my confession box, my legacy, and my last refuge when the world turns cold. I gave it all to them, carved out room for them in the very core of my being, and what did they do? They took it. Unknowing, uncaring, ungrateful. They never asked for it, you might say. And maybe they didn’t. Maybe they never wanted to be enshrined in my poetry, to be woven into the fabric of my thoughts. But does that make it hurt any less? Does that soften the sting of knowing that I have dedicated entire fragments of my existence to people who would not… will not… dedicate a single breath to me? Not a moment, not a thought, not even the barest whisper of recognition. I want to destroy it all. Every single word. I want to gather up the pages, the old journals, the napkins and torn pieces of paper scribbled with half-finished lines, the notes tucked away in forgotten corners, my notes app, google doc app, emails sent, unsent, trashed, sent, drafted… and I want to burn the many thousands of it all. I want to watch the flames consume every trace of my devotion, want to feel the heat on my skin and know, for once, that something I gave to them all will finally be gone. That they will no longer exist in the spaces I crafted for them, that they will no longer haunt me in the way ink dries on a page and never lets you forget. Because what is the point? What is the point of immortalizing ghosts, of giving love to the absent, of writing and writing and writing when all I get in return is silence? When my words, my soul, are cast into a void where no one even cares to listen? I tell myself to stop. To walk away. To let them go. And yet, I still find myself lingering, pen or phone in hand, wondering if this time, just this once, something will be different. If maybe one of them will turn around, will hear the echoes of my devotion and finally… finally, see me. But I already know the answer.

So I tell myself again: Enough. No more. No more words wasted on people who do not think of me. No more odes to those who would not write my name in the margins of their own stories. No more.

And yet… damn it, yet, I know I will keep writing. Because the worst part? The cruelest part? I don’t know how to stop!

With love and irritation,

-aubs