“What if writers are just people who were never listened to? I want to tell him that we, the youngest, are the lymphatic systems of our families. We are still swollen now, protruding from everywhere. We hold all the stories, the secrets, the indulged resentments between one family member and another.”
Not the youngest, but this got me. I remember being a kid and narrating everything when I went out of the house and alone into the woods. Like I could hold what was happening at arms length if I told myself stories about it. I could reshape it, make it mine, make it less frightening in that ownership. I often wonder if the impulse to write is a trauma response.
“What if writers are just people who were never listened to? I want to tell him that we, the youngest, are the lymphatic systems of our families. We are still swollen now, protruding from everywhere. We hold all the stories, the secrets, the indulged resentments between one family member and another.”
Not the youngest, but this got me. I remember being a kid and narrating everything when I went out of the house and alone into the woods. Like I could hold what was happening at arms length if I told myself stories about it. I could reshape it, make it mine, make it less frightening in that ownership. I often wonder if the impulse to write is a trauma response.