What I really want to say is I’m too old for this shit. What I really want to say is that I worry about my age and how I’ve not managed to fly or fall yet. I’ve neither sunk nor swum.
What I really want to say is that whenever you have the opportunity to use “swum,” do it. It’s good for the soul.
I want to tell someone I’m worried and have them tell me it’s going to be all right. I want Father Time himself to tell me my clock hasn’t run out. I want him to tell me I won’t look weird standing at the starting line or, more like the registration table, at forty-two. I want Mother Nature herself to tell me my body won’t give out midway through and I’m still fit for the race.
I want someone to understand the concept of perpetual kitten-hood and how wild cats don’t meow. They purr, they hiss, they growl, but they don’t meow.
I was a wild cat once. I’ve moved forward. I’ve moved back. I’ve moved away. I’ve moved back home.
Where is home? Where is finally, finally home? I really want someone to tell me.
I want someone to tell me my former wildness is as true as I hope it is. I want someone to tell me I still have it in me. I want someone to tell me that re-learned, life-and-death kitten-hood doesn’t have to be permanent.
What I really want to say is I hope I don’t have to sing to my empty bowl forever.
I hope I won’t always be grateful just to eat from any hand that isn’t hurting me.
What I really want to say is that I’m angry, but I don’t know how exactly to say that without sounding like I’m reading out loud the results of a middle school science project. I can describe it. I cannot demonstrate. I cannot replicate the experiment.
What I really want to say is I’m grateful to have one human in my life who understands that pain draws in as much as it pours out and, if not pouring, it is possibly drawing in with black hole intensity. Not a lot of people have that person. What I really want to say is I’m lucky.
What I really want to talk about is all the reasons I have to be angry and I want someone to be outraged with me. I want someone to show me what outrage looks like if it doesn’t look like eating your own heart and all the cookies in the box. I want someone to show me how it’s done and to do it with me.
What I really want to say is that I hope I don’t destroy myself before I create myself in the first place.
-M.
M. N. Ashley 
Feeling the honest vibes and the emotions behind this piece. Thanks for writing!
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