A Word Eater

Because I was taught to be a sweet little girl,
Obedient and loving, putting others first,
Because I was taught “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” and the familiar rhyme “sugar and spice and everything nice,”

Because of that, I learned early on to eat my words.

My baby teeth were still in, and I was learning the skill so many little girls are taught—
I learned to eat my words one word at a time. 
Noisily crunching, snapping, and chomping.
I was advised to be polite and “never talk with your mouth full,” but even with my mouth closed, my chewing sounds were so loud others could hear my eating.

Over the years I learned to break the words of pain and disappointment and outrage more slowly,
More carefully, so few noticed.
I deliberately ground those words into tiny pieces easy to swallow and digest,
So slowly and deliberately I felt like I was opening a peppermint wrapper in a quiet church service.

Later, as my molars came in, and as my wisdom teeth started making their way to the surface,
I learned how to eat my words less noticeably, more noiselessly,
Scissoring, grinding, and using my tongue to loosen lost bits of hurt and anger from my molars.
Few knew I was chewing—

I was even capable of smiling while I felt the words present between my cheek and teeth, moved aside for future examination because the words were too much,
Like a too-big acorn pocketed away in a chipmunk’s cheek.

In addition, I learned that the most dangerous words, the most gristly of all, were words of anger.
Sweet girls didn’t voice these weapons.
These words were quickly swallowed,  despite my pediatrician’s advice to chew 30 times to aid in digestion.
These words could not be liquefied, they could not lose their texture and gristle.
These words of anger had to be swallowed whole, and I felt them slowly move down my throat, down my esophagus, and further inside.

No wonder women gain weight in middle age.
Too many words swallowed.
Too many words gnawed on, chewed on, swallowed.
Whole minutes and months and years, perhaps, spent gumming words into a shapeless, tasteless mass,
A smushed denial of existence.
Swallowed and sitting in the stomach, in the blood flowing through our veins, and in our very being.
Filling us up,
Undigested,
Weighing us down,
Gurgling and bubbling from below,
Breaking down and burning, acidic, erosive,
With a great desire to expel them all . . . 

But knowing all too well that no one (including myself) is prepared to see just how many words we have eaten.