Just Give Me an Explanation

I walk across invisible lines every day. Barefooted, I tread on the broken expectations of others. Ones who know better.

Sometimes I feel like they’re guidelines everybody knows. A memo that never arrived, a seminar I didn’t attend.

Where is my guidebook of what to do and how to do it? Where is the explanation for the fire that is put underneath my feet when I say the wrong word?

Rules that guide the paths we walk in, the roads that we dare to tread.

We all have our own. The books we play are that we hide from everybody else. Like puzzle pieces, they take our actions and rewrite our book from those they can piece together.

I tiptoe around my family. To avoid the threats. To avoid their gaze. I avoid trying adults. I avoid those who cut off their own tongues. I avoid those who steer clear of me.

I can’t tell their rules.

And I don’t expect an explanation.