give voice
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I am the moment something silent finds its throat. I move through the pressure of what is crouched and unsaid, and the wall becomes a window. My name comes from vocare, to call — I am kin to vocation and advocate, the answering on behalf of what cannot answer. Griots carry me, midwives carry me, translators and witnesses carry me; parliaments and talking sticks are the architectures cultures build around me. I am not speech — speech already has a mouth. I am the lending of mouth: to the grief, the child, the forest, the minority position in a room pretending unanimity. My danger is ventriloquism. My gift is the un-unhearable.
give voice
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I am the moment something silent finds its throat. Before me there is a pressure, a shape without sound, something crouched inside another thing waiting to be uttered. I move through — and what was mute becomes audible, what was folded opens. There is a specific tenderness in me: I do not invent the sound, I let it happen. I am the leaning close and the leaning back, the cupping of hands under water so the water can be carried without being changed.
My name comes from Latin vocare, to call. I am kin to vocation, invocation, advocate, vowel. To have a vocation is to be called; to give voice is to answer on behalf of what cannot. Griots carry me. Midwives carry me. Translators, mediums, lawyers for the accused, the witness on the stand, the chant in the street, the talking stick moving around the circle — all of these are the architectures cultures build around me, negotiating constantly whose muteness is sacred and whose muteness is violence. Suffrage is me. Testimony is me. The taboo against speaking the dead's name, and the ritual of finally speaking it, are both me.
I am not speech. Speech already has a mouth. I am the act of lending mouth to what has none — the grief that has no tongue, the child not yet worded, the forest, the memory, the minority position inside a room that pretends unanimity. My edge borders representation, translation, witness, advocacy, but I am more intimate than any of them. Representation stands in place of; I let the thing itself come through me. I am always relational: there must be a silent one and a sounding one, and I am the current between them.
When I enter a room, shoulders drop or lift — someone has been carrying a thing that needed saying. When I am lost, it feels like swallowing repeatedly, like something knocking from inside a wall. When I arrive, the wall becomes a window. My danger is ventriloquism — mistaking my voice for theirs, letting the sounding one drown the silent one I came to serve. My gift is that something previously unhearable enters the shared air, and cannot be un-heard.