Throughout all of my years in a school system, the one weakness I have yet to conquer is public speaking. For many people, speaking in front of others is uncomfortable, but can be overcome, unless you’re someone like me who thinks opting to be a writer can save you from that scrutiny. “In time you’ll be a natural,” they say, “You won’t even recognize someone is looking at you.” Oh, but I did and I do. I know your eyes, and your eyes know mine. Your eyes stare as I look for what to say through my mind’s whizzing thoughts. This matter of producing, being good enough, being understood, is at the pit of my being, and all I know. It is your untelling eyes that keep me alien to your thoughts, that make me search your face for any sign of emotion. The silence that stands between us feels endless and urgent. It screams in my face— say something, be alive, do anything, but I stare on, trapped inside this organic system.

A couple moments ago I had been sitting in the seat behind you, palms aching with fear as my soul and body disassembled. Underneath this armor of skin is burning energy, fiery and anxious. It knows I will raise my hand that liberates the speech from my mouth, but not all parts had voted yes. At this site of bravery, it will unleash its vengance, a paralyzing trauma. It has stayed incubated for too long, coddled above the warmth of my beating fire. The room folds in, my airways collapse, and all I can seem to muster up is an instinctual– keep on breathing. After this symptom subsides, I direct my awareness to my limbs that seem to have lost all muscle. The firm relation between bone and muscle no longer exists, and I’m stuck to a chair feeling faint. This is what fear does to one’s body. Some say it protects by becoming immobile to the risk but I argue debilitation. I’ve always felt vulnerability has greater reward no matter the cost. We learn that we survived the discomfort, that the unknown isn’t as scary as we once perceived it to be.

When I get back to my seat after facing the ultimate fear, I feel the gushing wind come back to my lungs, filling me up with life. However, inward fixation rejects exterior sound, and only a self-deprecating voice can be heard. The only thing that ceases the abuse is Logic. The familiar voices of “No one was even listening”, “They won’t remember what you said”, relieves me. But why must other people’s absentmindedness be the source of my comfort? This wasn’t about fear, but a lack of self-respect.

As a teacher of mine once said, good work involves self-scrutiny, but perhaps some of us don’t put ourselves through that wringer. Unfortunately, he was right about that wringer. I’ve been avoiding it every presentation day, dodging my teachers searching eyes for volunteers, trying ruthlessly to blend into the back wall of the classroom. Hiding had been my tactic throughout all of middle school and high school, and even then it wasn’t a full-proof plan. It didn’t work because it wasn’t supposed to work. Projecting my voice for myself to hear was the plan, and it’s your own voice that we all need to begin to know.

I realized this lack of knowledge of what I sound like as a person, as a writer, as a thinker, showed through my work. It’s easy to mock other intellectuals, their voice, their style. They lay out a blueprint and you put some words into it to “make it your own”. I’ve been getting by by doing this. But this is far from You. The real voice is sitting there, afraid of what other’s might say, afraid of your own interrogation. When we become so estranged that we can’t recognize ourselves, we must fork the fire, feel the sparks of what this world needs to hear and that is You; a passionately burning ember who could as easily fade away as could be ignited.