TRYING TO BE A STARFISH

I can’t shake the tension. I feel cramped up inside my clothes, one knee jammed against a table and an uncomfortable itch all around me. Every joint feels stiff, out of place as though twisted into a locked formation of curled fingers and aching limbs. I am trapped inside myself.

What I’d like to do is spread out. Like a starfish, every tingling nerve-ending extended and relaxed against the sand and the sun. I feel like this would ease this congested conglomeration of lungs, stomach, heart and chest.

I want to feel the wind, as though I were a kite stretched tight against the blue sky, with only a tiny ribbon of bright yellow bunting and a string that bounces with the breeze.

My neck is locked from screen-glare. My eyes are tired. My back is pushed into this faux leather, and hot tea swirls uncomfortably through me. I’m an automaton, like a meccano frame draped in skin and ligaments and jeans and a shirt and a hooded jacket.

I read an article about mansplaining today. I can’t tell you about it because within a sentence I’ll be actually doing it - mansplaining mansplaining. I’ll say this though: gentlemen need to get better at listening, respecting and not assuming.

It’s made me feel tense, much like my hopeless conversation yesterday. I know some stuff, I have a tough time working out what others do and don’t know, plus I really like explaining things: it’s my job. I’m highly likely to be a mansplainer. I sincerely hope not though. I want to be so much better at listening.

My feet feel hot, like they’re ballooning inside my trainers. Music I didn’t choose rings in my ears and the closeness of people suddenly bothers me. I don’t wish to hear conversations. I wish to think and dream. I wish to lie alone at the water’s edge and feel the waves crash, cool and calm over me, blocking the stars and the sun for a while and then seeping back into the great ocean.

I don’t think it’s totally down to me reading an article about mansplaining. I expect it’s other things. Nevertheless, I don’t want to be pompous. Sometimes I read my writing, or I hear myself talking and all I hear is pomp. It’s so pompy, my soundtrack may as well be a tuba. But I don’t want it to be. And the easiest way to do that is to stop talking and to start listening... or reading better. I need to chill and unwind all this tension.

So if you think I’m being a mansplainer, or a boring, bombastic old bloater, feel free to tell me to be a bit less of a pompadour and a bit more of a starfish.