Behind My Teeth - by Oluwaseun Balogun

I became good at swallowing words.

Not food.

Words.

Questions. Explanations. Defences. Anything that might sound too loud, too questioning, too much.

I learned to keep them tucked behind my teeth.

I remember sitting among the adults while they spoke. Someone said something about me, and I felt a sentence rise before I could stop it. I was ready to explain myself.

Then came the warning.

“When your elders are speaking, don't talk.”

The sentence disappeared.

I swallowed it.

Someone would say something about me, and I would sit right there, listening to a version of myself I didn't recognize. I had the words. I knew exactly what I wanted to say. But I knew better than to say them. I had already learned what happened when I did.

Sometimes it was the look.

Sometimes the raised voice.

Sometimes the rod.

And sometimes, before anyone had to do anything, I silenced myself.

I remember standing there with so much to say, feeling like my mouth belonged to somebody else. Like I had been given a voice but not permission to use it.

So I stayed quiet.

But the words didn't disappear.

They followed me home.

They waited until the room was quiet, then came back.

I should have said this.

Why couldn't I explain myself?

Why was a question treated like disrespect?

The older I got, the harder it became to swallow everything. I began noticing things I couldn't unsee. Things that didn't become right simply because someone older had said they were.

That frightened me.

Not because I had nothing to say.

Because I had too much.

I had spent so many years keeping words behind my teeth that I no longer knew what would happen when I finally let them out.

Still, I spoke.

I remember the first time. The hesitation. That small pause where an old warning rose in my head.

Should I really say this?

I said it anyway.

Nothing dramatic happened.

The room was still there.

The people were still there.

And so was I.

But something had shifted.

I had crossed a line I'd spent years being afraid of, and once I crossed it, I couldn't pretend the line was as powerful as I'd believed.

There is a boy I keep coming back to—the one sitting with his hands in his lap, a whole sentence sitting behind his teeth, watching the adults decide what was true.

If I could sit beside him now, I wouldn't tell him to be brave.

I'd just say it for him.

Whatever it was.

I don't even need to know.

I'd let him watch someone say it and survive it.

That's all he needed.

Not permission.

Proof.

I am still learning when a word needs to leave my mouth and when silence is enough. But I know what it cost me to keep swallowing every sentence.

I don't want to pay that price again.

So if the words come, I will let them come.

If the story is mine, I will tell it.