I should have said I never enjoyed the aquarium in the third grade,
That it made me squeamish when I thought of all the
sad sea animals that longed to be set free.
And I should have said I missed my mom when my parents would ship me off to spend
the summer with my grandparents.
I missed my mom, and I should have said that
And I should have said at the age of 14 I no longer
enjoyed the company of the boys
at the lunch table,
and that I wanted to be alone,
because I felt alone.
And I should have said that when my siblings went on road trips with my father,
that I wanted to come
but I felt paralyzed
by the fear of being crushed in the small red car.
And I should have said on my 15th birthday that I’m no longer a child
and I wanted to experience life raw
and full without my parents looking over my shoulder.
And when I woke up in the middle of the night and my mom asked me if everything was
alright,
I should have told her I was scared.
I should have told my mom I wasn’t okay
and that I couldn’t sleep,
and that I felt alone,
and that I missed the fish
and the road trips
and the little red car.
I should have told my mom I was scared of being 16
and that life seemed like a black hole that was
suffocating me alive.
These are the things I should have said
These are the things I wanted to say
These are the things I should have said, but shouldn’t.
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