James Stryker Mott 1921-2003

I wanted to write about you. 

But the words that I want to say feel too contrived, even this.  You know how you have a certain way of talking with people, in general?  I know how I talk to Mom, and I know how to talk to my friends.  But I can't seem to find a way to talk to you.  I guess, in the end, I realize that listening to you was my favorite thing, and often I when I think of you, it's the stories you told.  And the support, always and forever the support, and I can't think of a way to express myself.  I feel the wrong words choke the right ones as they try to struggle out, and I could swallow my tongue and be more eloquent.  There is an ease of speaking that I had when I was little, when I spoke like I did then, however that was.  I don't have that ease now.  Now, every word is set up against impossible standards to be perfect.  I don't feel the perfection, the natural flow.  It's like when they talk about how dialogue isn't written the way people speak, but the way people speak is written like dialogue, and I get confused between the two; and I can't find the voice I want to use, because the voice you heard and you knew has changed, and sometimes it's better that way, but mostly it's harder, and that makes the barrier wider and deeper than ever before.  There's nothing to say really, because I can't find the right words, but I feel like despite that, you would still understand me.  We would still eat my brownies and remember when we went swimming and butternut crunch ice cream afterward, and watch the birds and say all those funny names. 

I think there's a part of me, somewhere hidden, that knows it's just for me and you anyways, and it never was for them. 


~Olivia