I have spent enough years
watching shoes
to distrust
first impressions.
A name crosses the room.
A backpack is flung against the cinderblock wall.
A water bottle leaves its damp ring
on black marley worn pale
by entrances, exits, curtain calls,
by kings, widows, lovers, murderers,
by seventeen-year-olds
who believe tragedy lives in volume
and forty-year-olds who arrive
already acquainted
with silence.
A left heel angles toward the door.
Toes tighten
inside borrowed character shoes.
Weight gathers
along the outside of the foot,
where children first discover
that laughter
and being laughed at
arrive through the same door.
Some sounds never leave the room.
They find a surface,
turn once,
and spend years
coming back
as echoes
against the wall.
There must be some reason
the body keeps records
the mind—busy with grades, groceries,
taxes, traffic, passwords, anniversaries—
files away as finished.
Some reason
the shoulders rise
even when the room remains kind.
Some reason
the jaw, faithful as a lockbox,
finds its work again
under fluorescent tubes
buzzing overhead
with the steady indifference
of state-funded buildings.
And breath—
that ancient accomplice,
that old collaborator,
that invisible scene partner
who has crossed every border
without passport, permission,
or applause—
waits.
I have watched hundreds arrive.
Some carrying scripts
already underlined.
Some carrying talent
like contraband.
Some carrying humor
loaded
in the back of the throat,
polished by repetition,
released
the instant
a silence
turns personal.
Some carrying beauty
they haven't yet noticed
in the mirror.
And every so often—
with no music,
no revelation,
no visible sign
to anyone
who has not spent
a good part of her life
watching human beings
approach themselves—
the floor receives
its full measure.
The spine remembers
its oldest mathematics.
The ribs make room.
A voice,
patient through childhood,
through manners,
through institutions,
through every careful lesson
in becoming agreeable—
hits oxygen
and catches fire.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Tag: Voice
What Does Paper Know of Life?
From the desk of Iris Lennox.
What does paper know
of life?
Only what we tell it.
I spread the pages
across my kitchen table,
one hand on oak,
the other
on language.
Afternoon light
finds the margins first,
then the staples,
then the black strokes
of my name
pressed hard enough
to leave its mark
three sheets down.
Good.
Some truths
deserve
depth.
The paper remembers dates.
It remembers names.
It remembers
who stood where,
who reached first,
who kept speaking,
who went silent,
who needed silence
to feel safe.
The ceiling fan turns.
Edges lift, but dare not
fly away.
They stay.
Pressure makes some run
and others stay.
A throat is made
of cartilage,
muscle,
membrane,
two pale folds
opening
and closing
over air.
Pressure meets tissue.
Even a whisper
requires force.
I know this.
I have taught students
to plant their feet,
unlock their knees,
drop their shoulders,
open their ribs,
and send a line
to the back wall
without asking
the room
for permission.
Never ask for permission.
I have watched
a frightened girl
find her stomach
and then her voice.
I have watched
boys
speak one true sentence
without laughing
and become men.
I have watched
language
enter the body
and change
the way
a person stands.
So when the hand came,
when the pressure came,
when silence
came to wrap around,
to shut me down,
to choke
me—
I know
what a voice is.
The larynx bruises.
The breath adjusts.
Once,
I lost it.
But don’t worry about me.
I just drink the tea,
bite down on the Ricola,
and breathe.
Shakespeare told us
long ago,
“Speak the speech,
I pray you,
trippingly on the tongue,”
And I tripped.
A little.
Then I got back up.
And spoke
until cartilage,
muscle,
membrane,
air,
ink,
oak,
paper,
rooms,
whispers,
and men
who mistake women
for little girls
had to listen.
They reached for an instrument
they didn't understand.
So I took
what the body knew,
what the stage taught,
what the page required,
what courage costs,
and I used
all of it.
Outside,
water climbs
through xylem,
one molecule
pulling another.
Roots enter limestone
by touch.
A seed splits
in darkness
and takes root.
What does paper know
of life?
Only what
we tell it.
—Iris Lennox
First published on IrisLennox.com.
Beyond Equivocation: Say What You Mean with Confidence
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had an English teacher I admired greatly. She taught me how to properly structure essays and understand the mechanics of writing. One afternoon, I was called into her classroom to work on an essay she had given a failing grade. I was flummoxed by her judgment in the moment and let her know.
“You have to learn how to do it correctly before you can break the rules of writing. Right now, we are learning the right way.”
A couple of years after I graduated, I went back to visit her. We remembered that moment together, and I thanked her for the discipline she forced me into.
While I’m grateful for that lesson, it isn’t what I remember most.
The treasure I carry from her is this:
“Don’t ever justify yourself in writing. Don’t say ‘I think’ this or ‘I believe’ that. Just say what you mean and move on.”
I’ve written that way ever since.
For me, at fifteen, her advice was revolutionary. Girls are raised to be nice, to soften their language, and to defer to more established voices. Truth is often framed as something to be approved before it can be spoken.
I give this advice to every student who comes to me in the writing center or in class, and I feel a special conviction for it when I’m speaking to young women:
Write the truth. Stand behind it. Don’t justify your own thoughts.
At some point, you learn to recognize the difference between a sentence that is reaching outward and one that already says what you mean, in confidence. You can feel it when it settles, when the words hold their weight and don’t need to be subject to equivocation. That is the place to write from, not as a performance or a plea but as a statement. Something known, something claimed, something set down with the full understanding that you might change your mind tomorrow or next year, but for today, this is exactly what you meant to say.
Jill Szoo Wilson 