Bench Conversations to Remember

Can we just talk, listen and simply understand each other's emotions?

Crash like a meteorite from any corner of the universe, and come sit next to me. Unravel your thoughts layer by layer, skin to skin, bone to bone. As we sit next to each other, let only the air hold our secrets, and let the judgments and dogmatic views of society evaporate like camphor. 

~ The Brazen by Susie Myerson

“I just want to talk to someone on a secluded bench, perfectly placed between lonely and peaceful. “

You could have the most beautiful face, but I will make you feel heard and seen, not because you are charming but simply because you’re a person just like me. I will tell you about how I start my day with listening to “bad bitch affirmations”, yet I can’t stop myself from crying whenever I see an orphan kid begging for food or when a really hard-working bartender sheds joyful tears after getting a portrait from that “subway guy who sketches random people.” And you’ll be there to listen, because that’s the most meaningful thing you can do: genuinely listening to another person. 

I promise I will listen and believe your words when you tell me how exhausted, worried, scared, confused, and lonely you sometimes feel as a man. I might not be a man, but I will provide you that warmth and comfort, where you won’t have to worry about showing vulnerability as a sign of weakness or expressing something that makes you feel any less of a man. 

I will tell you how rude people kill my mood instantly, and you will talk about how your short-tempered mother-in-law is trying to control everything, right from the color of the sheets to every aspect of your personal life. My heart will break into pieces when you tell me about your miscarriages and how you thought you would never be able to hear your baby’s voice, and yet you came to life again after hearing the cooing cries of your autistic son when he was born. Instead of showing how sad I feel for your story, I will add your name to the list of “bravest people I have ever met” and will tell you: Your baby is the luckiest child to have a mother like you.  

I will be reminded of my first crush when you tell me how every Christmas reminds you of the first boy you ever kissed and how your brother broke his nose and made a bloody mess. I will share my bomb-ass playlist with you and recommend you every misandrist, chauvinist, feminist show out there because of “how that one guy broke our hearts when we wanted no one but him.”. 

I will sit with you complaining about “how I always feel out of place in this generation” and how I’m such a philosophical softie. I’ll share everything—from the bliss of that first cup of morning tea to the cozy feel of my satin pajamas on my king-sized bed. 

Just make me feel that I can talk like I think and that I don’t have to filter my thoughts before expressing them, and I will let you see me. There is a beauty, an almost insatiable one, in meeting someone and seeing them ~ as they truly are.

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