Concrete Noise

I cried a lot as a kid . A lot harder too .
I’ve never really been able to articulate emotion . But I can write a mean letter !

My father use to yell and yell and yell.
I mean red in the face, spit flying everywhere yell. And I would just stand there , trembling. Usually if I tried to interject he would tell me not to explain shit to him and yell even more. I apparently explained shit too much.

I learned to shut DOWN completely; movement, speech, and all emotion. I could probably stand in the face of damnation and not blink.
After a long rant from my father, I’d retire to my room and cry.
That sort of holding back builds up enough tears to flood a small village and enough sobs to shatter glass.
Exhausted, I would scramble to find a pen and paper. I would write my father a letter with my deepest apologies for whatever I had done wrong that day and just a little dash of explanation.

I would slip the letter under his ever locked door and go to sleep praying he didn’t hate me as much in the morning.

I practiced this process into perfection and it seemed that the letters worked. He seemed to actually hate me at least a little less each morning after reading one of my letters.

I learned, however, that he had just been sleeping off some of the anger. After years of believing that my words were powerful, I found out I was wrong.
After a particularly long rant, as I was retiring to my bedroom, I was advised against writing another damn letter.

How would he ever know what I had to say if he didn’t read my letter ?
And then it occurred to me, he didn’t CARE what I had to say and a letter wouldn’t change that.

Years of communication issues later, I still can’t articulate emotions. That is, unless I’m yelling. And I still write letters in the form of txt messages. And when someone doesn’t want to read them, I still feel like they don’t truly care about what I have to say .

Wake me up when it’s over .