#is it the repressed trauma of being abandoned by her dad that wasn't really resolved?

[casualnepotism]

It is a strange thing, for a fighter to be so full of words. Having known a fuck ton of them, they’re usually either too quick-witted or too damaged to have any. But I have so many.

Chock full, some would say. I’ve stored them up for years, months, weeks, days. Hours. All the moments it was expected to say them, I missed. All the moments it wasn’t, I seemed to grasp onto and yet- still- they remain. Even when I manage to get them out of me, they’re the wrong ones: excess that built up over time and spilled out before I could fix them into what they were supposed to be. Cataloging the moments where I could have. Should have. Said anything at all and I couldn’t.

When Maelo said he had it, When Wol decided to leave, When Cog tore out her heart, When Clay made his choice, When Nilos first floated joining the board, When Adiane leaned into her godhood, When Cog destroyed the church, When I killed Wol, When Jack killed Dennis, When Jack died, Again, again, again, When Nilos did leave to join the board,

So many times I’ve written speeches in my head to match you all, discarding them back down to where they could live safely. Knowing they could never match what any of you say without even thinking about it. Knowing that none of your goals align to my own, not really. I kept thinking the time would come, the stars would align, the world would sit still long enough for me to explain. Long enough that you would have time to listen and parse my plodding inanities to hear the point that I hide.

Clumsily. Easily visible to anyone listening, I know. I am not skilled in words the way y’all are, so I have to assume you choose not to hear, and I understand. In your shoes, in the end, given the selfishness of what I ask, I would make the same choice.

My words will never match the ones you all spill forth so easily, handing them to the rest of us like they’re grains of sand and not precious gifts to be hoarded and turned, over and over, until they lose definition with love. Not the ones I hand over, not the ones I hide and perfect, and perfect again and again and again.

I supplement instead with what I can give: a hand, a shoulder, a punching bag, a presence, a whetstone, a shield, a pillow. All of my words, folded and compressed, and shaved of their edges until they can be handed away in a bomb that you will never recognize.

Not a bomb, perhaps. You see? Even now, my words cannot compare.

Allow me to rephrase.

We all know what a milkshake is. We could easily describe it. But there is so much more, for us, held inside the word that we could never describe. For me, anyway.

I hope that you have always understood my actions for what they are. A milkshake for the words I was never able to say. I hope you know that I would never you are so I have never I could never if you were to s I hope you know it’s a milkshake for only one word, really, that you can and should interpret in all its forms.

Stay.