The Scream

Even as a child I always felt this

Sense of impending doom

It was always too loud

Someone was always in distress

Yelling screaming

Random outbursts of crazy

That we would ignore

I would sometimes imagine if I sat on a bench and just screamed at the top of my lungs but didn’t move just, screamed and screamed. Without moving a muscle. Just my face open with a long high pitch scream as if I’m running for my life or witnessing my loved ones get chopped up into pieces or whatever cliche thing we are supposed to scream at like that. Maybe it’s just your designer purse being shredded to pieces. Or worse goes out of style. But maybe that’s more of an internal scream when it involves those things we know maybe we shouldn’t love or value more than a humans life. So me on the bench still screaming. Hands gripped around the edge of the bench. Knuckles white. Screaming. I’ll stop to catch my breath and then I’ll scream more. I’ll imagine I do it at any bench. The first one I see. Why don’t we scream? Why don’t we just sit and scream? Imagine a million. Imagine just 2 or 3 screaming. Just screams. Deep laborious screams. Screams that break our throats and make us cough. Screams that make tears run down our face as we realise how long we’ve just wanted to fucking scream. Yeah. Just me on a bench screaming. Not reaching for anyone to calm me. Just a release. Don’t ask me if I’m okay or what is it or tell me to get up and leave. Because I will scream. I will just scream and scream and scream. Until you leave. Or maybe you’ll join me. You’ll join me because words matter so little as I scream in your face and my veins pop out my temple and sweats drips down my neck and spittle flys out my mouth. Maybe.

I never did it before. I’ve briefly. But not again. And again. Life isn’t that bad. Maybe we all don’t want to scream. Maybe it would disturb something careful we’ve all secretly built. There’s a thin line we thread each day that invites us to not scream. To smile as we swallow our food and grin at the small things. Bear the enoughness and say it’s too much. Even boast of lack. It’s not enough. But I’m too much. If I sit on a bench. And scream. Knuckles right around the edge Not moving a muscle. Just mouth open making sure to stop for breaths not crying this time. It’s not about the pain. It’s about the sustaining of the sound. The sound of the scream is what truly makes you pay attention. The disturbance that doesn’t touch you but still assaults all the senses. The one cry.

What if I screamed?

And then you screamed.

What if we all screamed ?

What if we all picked one day and time and you gotta just go outside and scream. No alarm no distress. Just a yearly release. Set amount of time. To scream and scream. Where ever u want. It can be for just a minute. But you must scream. Perhaps that would be the only day we all feel each other the most.

But then I think we would laugh. I really do. Imagine screaming as a group hard as we could. Yes. And then all seeing each other and looking around and laughing. It would be quite funny after all. Us as a humanity all agreeing to this one thing. Of all things.

While I wait for public screaming to be more socially acceptable

I’ll settle for this thought.