Glossophobia
By Kelly Grace Thomas
74% percent of the population suffers from Glossophobia,
or the fear of public speaking.
Which means 3 out of 4 of us, find a microphone, captive
audience and the chance to speak up,
more intimidating than spiders, chemical warfare or dying
alone.
That people full of thoughts, so electric they could power
the Los Angeles skyline,
hearts so big they make oceans look like rain puddles.
would rather die
muted,
wrapped in a silence
pregnant with poetic low tides and blue Julys.
You will never know what having a tongue really feels like
if you always keep
your mouth shut.
Learn to pronounce the truth.
This muscle, with the power to taste and kiss
and speak
and speak,
needs bravery as much as it does blood.
Words can be heroic.
Way too many unclaimed feelings live in the small town of
fear.
Tongues should not be kept prisoners, starved of purpose
Who taught us to
hold them,
bite them,
quiet them?
And what do they have to say now?
Maybe if we weren’t so silenced
teenagers wouldn’t use spray cans as voices,
screaming on city walls, so someone, anyone knows they were
there.
Maybe if adults weren’t so scared of saying how they feel,
the cancer would stop winning,
the mirror wouldn't feel like razor blades
and there wouldn't be so many “I-wish-I-hads”
piling up in the
backyard
without a hole deep enough to bury them in.
Maybe it was taken by the tooth fairy, when you unpacked shame
for lunch
embarrassed to smile with a mouth full of holes.
Maybe it was at a homecoming, when the person asked to slow
dance
wasn’t you,
that you learned this waltz of disappearing,
shrinking into a whisper.
Maybe it was when someone weaker or smaller than you
asked for some answers
and the words “I don’t know” felt so dirty and small
that you forgot how to speak.
Maybe.
But mountains once stood tall before they feel to pieces.
To survive we must scream in the quietest places.
Just because the evening news has taught us to be afraid
doesn't mean we can’t change the channel.
Learn to broadcast you.
To tell a room, the town, the world
“this is me, all of me and I don't give a shit if you like
it.”
I’m fearful of a generation that cares more about how
they look in a selfie, than finding a cure.
That things like social justice and ambition
have become just another background to pose in front of.
We need to open our mouths.
To build or create.
To find the perfect words that
spackle with syllables.
That hammer with hearth ache.
I want you to ask yourself
when was the last time you were brave?
When was the last time you woke up in the morning and
slipped on some strong,
because you liked the
way you looked in it?
Being afraid doesn’t make you original or unique.
So please stop starting sentences with the word sorry.
Do not apologize
because you don’t agree.
Or wait for a
revolution to come to you.
Chance sits on your door step,
but first you need to go outside.
It’s funny that 75% percent of us are so convinced
that we are not important enough to pay attention too.
That we are scared of the spotlight and all that comes with
it.
But how will be ever be able to see how beautiful you truly are,
if we never turn on the lights.
