Finding My Voice

Finding My

By: Arica Burns

After years of words dying in my throat, now I’m finally finding my voice.

A little girl sits on the gym floor, face buried in her knees, diaphragm compressed by her legs squeezing to her chest. She’s crying. Her sobs catch in her throat, thoughts cut by the cruel words of her peers. She hears the laughter, the whispers getting louder, for the sixth time that day. She doesn’t move.

My voice was taken from me when I was only 8 years old. With how loud and rambunctious my family is, it was already but a whisper. But at only 8 years old, I knew better than to allow anything to slip from my tongue — if anything came from my mouth, I would be in tears until I passed out.

At 21 years old, I’m learning that my voice was never gone, not truly, but it was buried, caught in a trap that I couldn’t escape. For 13 years, I couldn’t voice my opinion or thoughts without shaking the feelingthat I was wrong, despite sometimes knowing I wasn’t. I went from lively and talkative to subdued and silent; it was so noticeable that my own cousins would call me out on it. It got to the point where I had to avoid confrontation altogether because it freaked me out too much.

Even now, if my family argues, I have to excuse myself. It used to make me emotional — I would almost always burst into tears. Now it’s because I feel the need to speak up, words of anger dripping from my tongue full of a frustration that I have never known what to do with. It took so long for these feelings, this urge, to build inside me.

It’s like I finally decided it was time to just be. It was hard enough just watching people tear each other down, feeling my voice get caught in my throat, wanting to stop it, but then the pandemic hit. I never thought I’d be thankful for something so destructive, but during this time, I truly began to realize that as my words are my weapon, that my voice has the power to make that weapon more volatile. It took a confrontation while I was on my own, a confrontation in the middle of a Walmart, of all places, for me to stand up for myself, for me to realize I had the power to speak up for myself.

I know how frustrating it is to feel as though your voice doesn’t matter. I know how hard you bite your tongue, scared of the reaction. But why hide your thoughts when you can open up a perspective, when you can add to the discussion? You should start slow, but don’t hold back. If you feel like you need to speak, just say it, raise your hand, and let the words flow out. Our voices are important, our thoughts do matter, so speak proudly.