Sometimes the words fall.
They don’t flow out, not in nice neat patterns.
They don’t emerge on the page, polished, profound.
Sometimes the words are raw, torn, the edges rusty, broken.
Sometimes the words that appear are the wrong words.
They are the words meant only for deep dark places.
Places that are sealed, concealed. Places where words are supposed to go and die;
but they don’t (they never do.)
Perhaps it is not the words that misbehave.
Perhaps it is the heart. It is the soul.
Raw and torn, rusty maybe bleeding around the edges
from the weight of what has been, could be, will be.
Young, strong, lost.
Perhaps it is this that makes the words wobble a little,
uncertain of their destination.
Uncertain of where they belong,
of which story they are supposed to be telling.
Tell me a story.
What story is it? Is it happily ever after?
The story that rings with an echo of all the times it has played itself out before?
The generic unenriched, white bread story.
I know this story. I know the ending.
Know who does the saving.
Know who gets saved and who doesn’t.
That’s not the story anyone wants to hear.
No one wants to hear the story of the one who doesn’t get saved.
It is easier to ignore, blame, reframe.
The ones who don’t get saved.
The ones who lie forever wrapped as a statistic.
Pushed out and away.
Pushed to the edges of the mind almost out of the knowing.
Almost.
What if happily ever after was replaced by the stories we don’t want to hear?
The stories that sing out in the hearts and minds of
mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, coworkers. Stories filled with love, pain, triumph and heart aches.
Stories that society fears, devalues,
the not pretty stories, not wrapped up in happily ever after.
Stories with too few chances,
too many told you so, too few supports,
too much hidden, too little understanding.
Now.
It is time.
Change the ending.
Hear the stories.