i tell him i just need space sometimes.
which is true.
which is also not the whole truth.
but i say it cleanly, like someone who has done the work,
like someone who understands herself,
like someone who is not, at this very moment,
waiting to be asked where she went.
 
the full truth is smaller and more embarrassing.
the full truth is that when i feel the attention shift,
when the room turns away even slightly,
something in me goes very quiet and very old
and decides, without consulting me,
to disappear.
not because i want to be alone.
because i want to be found.
 
i know this about myself.
i have known it for a while.
i keep it in the part of me i don't hand over in sessions,
the part that nods along and says
yes, i think it stems from childhood,
yes, i see the pattern,
yes, i am working on it.
i am not working on it.
i am just getting better at describing it.
 
there is a child in here who learned very early
that disappearing was the only reliable way
to make someone come looking.
that need, stated plainly, got ignored.
but absence, that got attention.
absence got the door opening.
absence got the are you okay, where did you go, i noticed you were gone.
she learned it well.
she still uses it.
i let her.
 
and then someone says
you are not good enough
and the child disappears entirely
and it is just me,
sitting with it,
crying in the specific way that has no audience,
the kind that isn't for anyone,
the kind that just
happens
because something true and terrible
was said out loud
and the body had to do something with it.
 
i tell him i have a healthy relationship with criticism.
which is a lie i have told so many times
it has started to feel like a personality trait.
 
the truth is i fold.
quietly, completely, without showing it,
i fold.
and then i go somewhere no one can see me fold
and i wait
for someone to notice
that i am no longer in the room.
 
and when no one comes,
i tell myself i preferred it this way.
i tell myself i needed the solitude.
i tell myself this is growth,
this is independence,
this is a woman who knows how to be alone.
 
she is lying.
she is sitting by the door.
she is listening for footsteps.
she is still, after everything,
waiting to be found.

~