When either sex suppresses the expression of feelings, it’s almost always b/c they don’t feel there is a safe environment to express them.

I have a tendency to really stuff things. I don't really express, you know? Like, express certain feelings and stuff.

But I can’t say the words. This is how relationships are most like the things I collect: We build these hard exteriors. We pull ourselves inside, block off the only way in, don’t let anyone see our true selves.

We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.

Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.

We learned to let our faces hide
our selves, to speak our story in a private
tongue, the past a shadow in our bones.

Something we were withholding made us weak Until we found it was ourselves.

Coming from a traditional Puerto Rican family, I wasn't allowed to express my displeasure at or disagreement with my parents' point of view in any meaningful way. Since I couldn't 'talk back', I started writing.

I regret it when I suppress my feelings too long and they burst forth in ways that are distorted or attacking or hurtful.

After that, I never managed to come back and show a lot of myself. I just had my child and kind of shielded her. I didn’t want people to come into our little bubble and I just stayed in it

...I was shut up inside that doll of myself and my true voice could not get out.

I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I'd slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm's length, behind a closed door, miles away.

I can’t reveal the mystery to either saint or sinner; I can’t state at length what I’ve said curtly; I achieve an altered state that I can’t explain; I have a secret that I cannot share.

We’re not allowed in an open way, in a public way, to talk about our grief and our experiences, our challenges, or our failures, which is what I tried to do.