The Violence of Articulation by Meg Fee

"I just keep thinking about that dinner table. The smooth green of the glass. The accumulation of dirty dishes and empty bottles. How startlingly sober I felt as I sat there. How his body was turned in, facing another woman. How in the end there were only four of us and how very much I felt apart. How when this other girl told a joke he laughed in a way that he only ever, upon occasion, laughed for me. And how when that happened I sort of caught my breath and thought, oh, well, there’s that.

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The violence of articulation. I had a teacher in school who used that phrase and I’ll never forget it. The violence. Of. Articulation. How nearly impossible it is to say some things out loud. How catapulting them out of the mouth is part pyrotechnics, part gymnastics, and one hell of a leap of faith. And how some words, no matter how they are said, leave cuts and stains and scratch the mouth.

But I’ve been choking on I-don’t-knows for nearly a month now, so you pick your battles.

Why is it easier to say the cruel things? Why do those words slip out, slick as oil, so tremendously seductive and so incredibly damaging? It’s so hard to speak from a place of generosity. To say, I am sad and I am hurt, and this can’t go on, but I am nonetheless in awe of you. To say you deserve my respect—my kindness, even as I am so completely and maddeningly frustrated with you—hurt by you.

Because the thing is, it’s not just about the words and the difficulty of getting them out—it’s about figuring out where truth and generosity meet. It’s about speaking from the largest part of yourself—that part that continuously reaches for a bigger life, that says I want more and if you can’t give it to me, I forgive you that—not your fault, but time to go. That part willing to risk a little bit of lonely. That part that makes a practice of faith and thinks well hell if I’m not lucky that I get to feel this, hard as it is. That part that goes to the edge of the cliff again and again and again.

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He wasn’t the right guy. For me. He wasn’t the right guy, for me. And he certainly never looked at me like I was the right girl for him. And I am a girl who wants to be looked at like that."

-Meg Feemegfee.com