“Slow down” they screech.
“You’re going nowhere fast.”
“At least enjoy the ride.”
“Don’t force it.”
“Don’t change.”
“Don’t be clingy.”
“Don’t push him away.”
“You’re scaring him.”
“He loves you.”
“He doesn’t.”
“He’ll leave you.”
“There are hundreds of girls he could like better than you.”
“Being there for him all the time? A little much too fast isn’t it?”
“You only love him like this because he’s the first person to show you any affection.”
-
Who said all these things? Why the quotes? You ask me.
My parents’ lips dropped these words and then abandoned them in my head. Tossed in a ring with my anxiety and insecurities and told to bash my happiness’ brains in. To pummel my certainty and not stop the beating until it was clinging onto life and begging to be spared.
-
They’re wrong. He tells me this quite often. Usually as I’m sobbing into his chest or as far as tonight is concerned into the shirt that he gave me. The thin white fabric pooling with tears as I write. And he’s right..they are wrong. How do I know that? How do you know that what they say isn’t true? Because he promised me. He promised me a house, a family, a world and life all our own. He promised to love me until the end of time. He swore forever on his life. And I believe him. Them? I just don’t.
-
So from now on my lips will be sealed from them. I won’t tell them another thing. I can’t handle what I hear them screech time and again. If I don’t speak I won’t have to listen.
