There’s a man
who speaks for me
when my throat burns raw
from holding too much back.
British.
Refined.
A little too sure of himself -
but isn’t that the point?
He showed up in the static,
when my own voice
started splintering
under the weight of smiling.
Back when masking
meant survival,
and sounding different
was the only kind of safe I knew.
He’s not always kind,
but he’s always ready.
Crisp consonants.
Neatly folded sentences.
No stammer, no stray emotion.
Just enough distance
to keep breathing.
He isn’t me.
But I let him live
in the hollow between words,
in the pause where fear used to be.
Some days, I speak
and only realize later -
it was him, not me.
He doesn’t ask questions.
He answers them.
I wonder sometimes
what he’s protecting.
Or hiding.
Or holding up like armor
against the softness of me.
Colonizer?
Comfort?
Cohabitator?
He was born
in the croak of survival.
And now,
even when I’m safe,
he stays.
I would never send him away.
He kept me whole
when I didn’t know I was breaking.
If I carry him still,
it’s because
he carried me first.
Sometimes, survival requires invention. This is about the voice I built to sound competent when I felt like I was falling apart - a voice too smooth to belong to someone like me, and too practiced to put down. He isn’t me. But he kept me from disappearing. And for that, I let him stay.
