Our Hands Stay Clean

We would die for each other, but we can't survive a car ride together. Give us twenty minutes in a confined space and someone will bleed. Not literally. We are very proud of that distinction. Our hands stay clean. Our mouths do all the work. There is an unspoken line running through this family, thin as fishing wire, sharp as a blade. Nobody talks about it. Nobody acknowledges it. Yet somehow we all know exactly where it is. We feel it in the tightening of a jaw. In the pause before a sentence. In the way a room suddenly grows teeth. We circle it constantly. Sometimes we step over it. Sometimes we pretend we didn't. Because in this family, wounds are acceptable as long as they aren't visible. We call it honesty. We call it concern. We call it wanting what's best for each other. But concern isn't supposed to leave you questioning whether your memories happened the way you remember them. Love isn't supposed to sound like a cross-examination. Every conversation becomes a court room. Every mistake becomes evidence. Every weakness becomes an exhibit. And the verdict is usually decided before any speaks. The strange thing is that nobody is innocent. We are all prosecutors. We are all defendants. We take turns standing at the witness stand, swearing to tell the truth, then carefully editing it. If someone points out the knife, the conversation becomes about their overreaction. And if someone finally gathers the courage to defend themselves, that defense becomes the crime. Because here, self-preservation is interpreted as confession. Explaining yourself is proof of guilt. Silence is proof of guilt. Anger is proof of guilt. There is no correct answer when the question was never asked in good faith. Tears are manipulation. At least, that's what we've been taught. So we learn to cry in private, where our grief can't be cross-examined. We learn to hold it in our throats until it burns. We learn to wipe our faces before anyone sees, before our hurt can be mistaken for a strategy. Because in this house, pain is only respectable when it makes no sound. So we learn to swallow words whole. We learn how to nod. How to apologize for things we don't understand. How to doubt our own memories before doubting someone else's version of them. We become experts at shrinking. Experts at translating cruelty into something easier to survive. The funny thing is, we really would die for each other. I believe that. If disaster struck, if the house was burning, if somebody needed saving, we would run straight into the flames. Without hesitation. Without question. But ask us to admit we were wrong. Ask us to listen. Ask us to speak without drawing blood. And suddenly we are helpless. Because somewhere along the way, love became competition. Every man for himself. Every conversation a battlefield. Every victory purchased with someone else's dignity. We spend so much time trying to be understood that we forget to understand. So much time trying to win that we forget there was never supposed to be a winner. And maybe that's the saddest part. Not the yelling. Not the accusations. Not even the things we can never take back. It's that beneath all of it, beneath the pride and the defensiveness and the carefully sharpened words, I know we love each other. I know we do. Which makes it infinitely harder to explain why being loved here sometimes hurts to much.