cracks.

our conversations are terse - meaning is incidental and accidental, though that is what we both yearn for. the words we send to each other are staccatto piercings of the silence we struggle to hold, and the words get embedded in the silence as we look on, not without hope, but knowing nonetheless that our words will not survive this noisy silence between us. i would that i were brave enough to show you this woman in front of you, to move from behind this silence, but vulnerability and honesty are difficult, and you have long since shielded your eyes. and i wonder how the tears distort your vision when you do bring yourself to look for those brief moments.

so i talk quickly about the mundane, the business of my life that i think you want to hear or that i hope will make you proud, and you respond, just as quickly, of your business, with your quick affirmations. we talk of external things, making notes on the weather, but the closest we get to sharing our internal lives come from the subtle cracks in our voices. the weather inside is still raging, but we do our best to pretend that the devastation is not there - both of us too polite, too proper, too scared to point it out. and as time passes, we have gotten better at playing our parts. the cracks are less frequent, more subtle, and i am wondering if i am willing the cracks as i am willing us to have the type of relationship we just don't have.

these days i find myself desperately saying more words, trying to pound through this silence we have created with our disappointments and hurts and confusions and fears, and we are saying less and less. but it is in these pauses while we are busy catching words to say to each other that give us any reason to have these conversations of ours. every time i hang up the phone, i am willing you to hear what the words didn't say. and every time we speak again, we begin anew - neither one of us able to translate for ourselves in this noisy silence, both of us too busy trying to hold ourselves together as the cracks compound, and we are left holding the pieces, afraid to drop anything, losing the meanings of the varied subtleties we pass between us.