What are you afraid to say? What words make up the cell you can’t seem to escape? Why is that solid feeling of water in your lungs dragging you down like an anchor at sea? What do you have living in your heart’s Pandora’s box that you never want to let out?
It must be something big, or maybe it just feels that way. It must be hard dragging all that weight around, trapped by it the same way you continue to trap it inside yourself. Whatever it is — a desire, a fear, a dream, a regret — it will hold you hostage as long as you’re its only home. If you just tell someone — anyone — you could breathe again. You wouldn’t be the only one carrying it. And how nice would it be to have an extra set of hands?
The cost of those hands might feel too great. You’ll have to be braver than you’ve been thus far to pass it into someone else’s palm. Stronger still to carry it off your chest. But the truth tends to get out — better to relinquish it yourself than elongate your own self-imposed suffering.
Your cage will disappear once you let it, and then all that is left is to step out into the light. Liberated. You could float up to the surface and fill your lungs with air. Saved. That noise from whatever’s rattling around in Pandora’s box would finally stop filling your ears. At peace.
But confessions don’t come easily. Writers know that better than anyone. Every line is a confession of emotion, of belief, of observation. By writing, they string them together every day.
In the Confessions B-Side, nine Daily Arts writers will show you how to confess.
Senior Arts Editor Mina Tobya can be reached at mtobya@umich.edu.
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