the file sits open on my laptop, blinking at me like an open wound. the cursor dances quietly in the white space, waiting for a command i don’t have. i read through the new paragraphs again, slower this time, picking at the sentences like a scab, trying to decide if they are any good, if they mean anything, if they would make anyone feel something sharp and immediate if they found them lying naked in their inbox.
i think about sending it. not officially, not like submitting it to some glossy-eyed journal that would only skim the surface before saying unfortunately, we receive many worthy submissions. not like sharing it with strangers who see everything and nothing all at once. i mean really sending it. showing it to someone who would know the weight behind the lines without needing a map. someone who would read the white spaces between the words too.
i sit with my hands poised over the keyboard like something might happen if i hold still long enough. like the impulse to reach out might pass through me without consequence, like a fever breaking. but it doesn’t. it settles deeper.
there’s a small, stupid part of me that still imagines a conversation at the end of every piece i finish. a kind of soft, imagined applause. a warm hum of you're so good, baby. i imagine reading the best sentences out loud, hearing them catch in the air between us, small and trembling and alive.
but the truth is, the emails sit in drafts now. the text messages get deleted before they’re even finished. the impulse gets packed down like snow, layer after layer until the wanting is cold enough to be harmless.
i close the laptop and sit back in the chair. the room feels bigger than it should. the walls pull away from me like a tide pulling from the shore. the silence after writing is louder than the silence before it. it rings against the windows. it presses against the back of my teeth.
i think about telling someone about my day. about the cheap coffee that tasted like burnt plastic. about the little boy at the grocery store who dropped a lemon and chased it halfway down the aisle laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. about the way the clouds cracked open right at sunset and lit up the sky like an apology. about how none of it matters, and all of it does, and how the smallest things are the ones i want to tell someone about the most.
the stories pile up with nowhere to go. they sit heavy behind my ribs. they thrum under my skin.
i wonder if they would even read them now. if the stories would pile up unopened like old mail on the counter. if the sentences would sag and yellow and crumble at the corners before anyone even looked.
i close my eyes and think about how many versions of myself are stacked up inside me now, unfinished and unmailed. versions that still reach out, even after the silence has grown too loud to pretend it’s anything but final.
the cursor is still blinking when i open my eyes again. patient. unbothered. waiting.
i close the file without saving.
All of my content is free, but if you would like to further support my work, please consider subscribing or buying me a coffee.
As always, stay safe, stay warm, and stay kind.
Best regards,
Zoe.
for what it’s worth i feel the same and by that virtue i think for a brief moment i embodied that audience u were yearning for
you captured this feeling of longing so beautifully.