biologically speaking

my friends are always telling me that i need to speak up. that i need to say what is on my mind more often. when they say it i agree, but inside it feels like an impossibility.

i let my infinite thoughts inside my head swim around until they go off and are so distant it is like they just stopped existing. really they are just hiding somewhere in my mind. and really only the most filtered, smallest selection of my thoughts get shared.

in this way i have become my mother. and it frightens me. i remember always asking her that dreaded question 'what is wrong?' and never getting a response. silence. it was her weapon or flaw. i don't know.

i started making decisions for my life and future when i was fourteen. i was self-sufficient and independent by the age of seventeen. i graduated from university and have visited shores my mother has never even considered.

but still no matter how different i try to be from this woman i have inherited her silence. despite all of my efforts to never be like her i've adopted her tongue biting. and i don't know what to do. no matter how ridiculous it is i always feel my biology has set me up for failure.