Marion Walker

The truth is complicated. I don't mean knowing it. Knowing it isn't so hard, sometimes. But getting it told can be next to impossible. The more you try to say it, the farther from it you get. Like pushing the same ends of a magnet toward one another, the more words people say to one another the farther they get from what they are trying to say, until you hear stuff coming out of your mouth and you say to yourself, where the hell did that come from? Or the other person says, what do you mean? And the fact is, you don't have the slightest idea what you mean. Then you get into the explaining, and before it's over the two of you are pushing each other across Colorado when you both know the truth lives in Carolina. Sometimes it's just better to keep your mouth shut.

It's not that you don't know the truth. It's just that when you do know something, and you know that it's true and somebody tells you to explain or to give examples, it just ruins it. We all know some things that are true. It's the telling that gets in the way. But when you love somebody, and you know it's true, and still she wants you to explain to her what love is, the telling screws up the thing you're trying to say. Everything goes wrong. Before it's over you hear yourself yelling things you never intended to say, things that aren't even in the least bit true. Things you'd never say. Things you can never take back.