Some days revising feels like sneaking little truths past myself. I’m sitting at my tiny kitchen table, the one with the wobbly leg, and I keep circling this line that showed up out of nowhere. It’s not fancy, just three words about a window, but every time I try to change it, my chest gets tight in that way that says, “Leave it.” I don’t always know what I’m protecting, but I trust the flutter. It’s like my body recognizes something real before my brain does.
I keep thinking about how queerness works its way into the lines, even when I’m not writing about love or identity on purpose. Maybe it’s the way I let softness sit in the middle of a sentence, refusing to sharpen it up just because someone else might expect it. I used to think I had to make things obvious, but lately I’m more interested in what happens if I just let the quiet parts stay quiet. There’s a kind of comfort in that, a private understanding between me and the page.
Sometimes I laugh at myself for getting tangled up in a single phrase for an hour, but that’s how I know I care. The mess of drafts on my laptop is basically a diary of all the little admissions I wasn’t ready to say out loud. Revising isn’t about getting closer to perfect for me. It’s just about getting closer to honest, even when honest feels a little slippery.
I guess all I’m saying is, I’m learning to trust the soft voice that wants to stay. It’s enough.