Still That Girl

She Will Not Be Quiet: A (mostly daily, mostly unedited) writing practice

Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash

Jotting from my journal. Day #229 of (mostly unedited, mostly daily) writing/sharing.

Note: (I will now be posting MY (MOSTLY) DAILY WRITING on weekdays only, rather than 7 days/week

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Still That Girl

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I was the toddler who, night after night
repeated, Mommy, I don’t understand, 
the girl in pigtails who escaped the noise 
to walk alone with the trees, the young girl 
who spent summers on Lake Champlain,
wrote in her journal while the men caught fish, 
the one who begged them to free the wiggly ones. 
I still remember the hook in the mouth, the desperate, 
big eyes, the sick feeling in my belly. In eighth grade, 
I was the new girl with the weird southern accent 
who wrote poetry in Biology class instead 
of dissecting the pig. The girl who felt everything 
too deeply, asked too many questions. Too sensitive, 
they said. Words were my safe place, my shelter of kindness, 
the arms that never closed or judged or criticized, never
asked her to be quiet. The blank page receives everything, 
always understands. I am still that girl. I am still
trying to understand. 

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