It’s a terrifying thing to admit a feeling that you’ve never spoken about aloud to a near stranger, a person who you are forced to share the worst of your memories. They call her Therapist. I sense her watchful gaze always upon me when I look away, unable to control my shifting eyes and pressing heart rate. I don’t feel like I can talk my way out of her observing me. She is being paid, after all, to listen and to give me something to grasp on to within my thickened mind.

My mind. Therapist tells me I need a voice. She tells me that I haven’t had one in a long time as if I never realized this before. I don’t think of her in an ill fashion, I was simply beaten to the punch in the way my words should have been formulated. Therapist tells me I had a voice taken from me, or at least suppressed into a small box I built labeled “voice”. It’s a cozy one, I suppose. I picture it in my chest with a small lock whose key has been in my hand due to fear. It is clutched tightly within my fingers like an anaconda to its prey, only I haven’t tried to consume it, but ration it. My voice sits alone in the little box, a cushy prison. A memory foam mattress with silver beddings next to stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes eight by eleven by twelve. A pile of empty pens and stubs of pencils with simply a miniscule tube of metal to hold the lonely pink rubber that will never be used are the guests. My voice is the host who sits at her desk, her temporary pedestal.
There is one window in the box-room. It opens only when the organ next door to her beats loudly, very loud, like a cadenced thunder. When light shines through, the voice tries to open it. She pushes against the thick glass and soaks in the rays, a thirsty traveler. She hears music and presses her ear to the cold texture. The voice closes her eyes each time it happens. When she opens them, she gazes at me with the key held tightly in my hand. My fingers are nearly white and the voice smiles, wishing for her triumph. My mouth doesn’t move, but my eyes do. I glance at the metal key plated in silver with a single violet jewel, knowing the voice sees a glazed stare.
Therapist tells me to unlock the door.
I do.
The voice comes out only when something else wins. She looks at the key in the small hole but doesn’t run. She simply looks at me, grins, and gives me a warm hug, her arms wrapping around my neck as a long lost friend. I feel slightly more complete. My best friend in a little room has returned, but only for a moment.
I open my mouth and speak. I talk about a world I created because of her, because of my voice. Therapist looks at me and finally reflects the smile that has broken upon my face. I gasp the words I’ve wanted to say, the feeling my voice helps coax out of my throat, out of my chest. I leave the key in the knob and laugh. I feel my heart beat and coo quietly to myself, thankful it still moves. I turn to send a smile to my voice to find she is gone, but I feel her presence as I continue talking. I look up at Therapist, my happiness dwindling as I realize I’m receding into the little box. I take a few steps backward into the darkness, unable to control myself.
The happiness is replaced with sheer panic and fear.
It’s too much.
I grasp the key and shut the door with myself inside. I lock it and grip the key in my hand once more.
It’s a terrifying thing to admit a feeling that you’ve never spoken about aloud to yourself. Therapist tells me I need a voice.