An Open Letter

“If you don’t heal the wound, you’ll bleed on people who did not cut you.” I’ve never met someone with a perfect childhood, and I think everyone carries those wounds with them, each in their own tragically unique way. Normally you can ignore it, but sometimes something pushes on it and causes it to bleed.

Keep by Whirr disguises itself as a gentle, ethereal song, with soft distant drums and a gentle guitar playing harmonic chords. And then almost two minutes in, the illusion falls out as you’re hit by a wall of sound that threatens to overwhelm you. The distant soundscape is violently brought all around you, almost suffocating. But just as fast as the bleeding starts, it backs away to give you the much needed space. And just in time you can catch yourself, and recollect.

Today while driving back home, for some reason I felt like this was a conversation. And there for a bit, the mask slips a bit and you threaten to crumble in front of the other in such a vulnerable way. But it lets up, and you hold it together.

The song continues one more time with its soft bridge, but this time with a melancholy tone under it. You saw what threatened to spill, and with that comes the fear of being too much. But the other person is still safe, and almost welcoming with its gentle chords again. It feels like a group of instruments somehow telling you the words “it’s ok, you’re safe here”. And then it starts to fade out again, just like a tsunami as I brace for the chorus again.

Then the wave hits you again. It’s enough to make you want to shut down, to isolate and get to safety to avoid being defenseless in front of someone, all you need to do is last a few more bars and it will stop. It pushes the line of overwhelming you again, but you know it will end.

And then it doesn’t. They drag you back, almost screaming, saying you’re safe. And then it’s too much, and it pours out of you. Every wound ignored and hidden spills out, and it’s that moment of screaming and begging at no one, wishing it never happened or that someone was there to save you then, or all of the other wishes that did not come true. It’s that ugly begging, the desperation born from fear that fills the space, and the painful knowing that it was too much, and you’ve ruined it, and since they’re leaving that means that you’re too much again.

But they don’t, they sit there, not screaming or crying along side you, but just letting you have that space. And once you’ve exploded in this ugly way, they hold you up to the light and don’t look away. They stay, and tell you it’s ok. You may not be ok, but you’re safe. And you will be ok. And it hurts but the wound can now begin to heal. You can gently fade away into their arms, and it’s quiet and you’re exhausted, but most importantly you are loved.