Let's hear it!


No, Talking


Her voice is big, like a canyon half full of a boisterous river, swearing at the boulders in its way, shouting at the little humans bouncing along its surface in Crayola colored rubber boats. The river and human’s determination and impatient volume echoes against the amphitheaters of the canyons walls, even in the flat stretches. So too her voice echoes in her mind.

Like the river she can be quiet, murmuring – but also like the river she can’t control her exultation at and of the rapids, and she doesn’t want to.

Kristy likes to think of herself as a river – wild and free, impossible for others to control. But in her real life there have been those who haven’t agreed with her. She has been forced to endure censorship too many times over the years and it’s always felt like imprisonment to her. Being bound and gagged by someone more powerful than she, her parents, assorted teachers and bosses, bruised her. And then there were the boyfriends – the men who came into her life praising her voice, her tone, only to eventually scramble for the volume knob. The ones who searched with their hands and eyes to locate the dial to turn her down or even sometimes to turn her off, wounded her.

She’s never understood this. It’s not like she ever disguised herself. Kristy wears a shooting star at her throat with one small glowing diamond. One guy she dated bought her a gold anchor to replace it with. If he’d wanted an anchor kind of girl why didn’t he pick one in the first place?

Well, now she’s done with all that, one of the perks of getting older. She’s outlived some of those controllers and also made more money than the ones who might threaten her into silence with their paychecks. And like the useless, outdated dams being blasted on rivers she’s read about, she’s done some dynamiting her self, blasting out old patterns and behaviors so her interior river can flow free in all its voices.

When she laughs her big loud laugh in public, people will sometimes turn and stare at her, but she doesn’t mind. If they frown she ignores them. If they smile in delight, she gives them an encouraging thumbs up, because she wants to hear all the voices, even the really loud ones.