An indefinite postponement of...
I speak, knowing that to speak is to begin trust. But to speak at all, there must already be trust, or a reason to believe trust will be possible. You ask me to speak: I am telling you what keeps me from speaking. I am telling you that, for me, silence is part of speaking; silence is also a habit, protection. I am telling you that your desire for me to speak, to tell you where I am, is synonymous with asking me to take a risk that I have taken too many times before, with asking me to repeat and repeat myself without getting anywhere. Endless repetition is simply not to say, and then to say again. It is language circling around its own opacity. To say and not be heard, to say and have to say again is to be silenced, to be made invisible in a skein of language not one’s own. Who has access to the what and wherefores of articulation also has separate, make distinctions, make selves and others.
And with the power to name and shape speech come the power to name and shape silence. My desire to speak, that I will speak, means that I am taking that risk for myself, for the sake of those connections I sometimes feel are impossible, for the sake of the possibilities I feel exist.
(An extract from Different Silences, by Traise Yamamoto)