I want to converse with the voice that tells me I should be filled with shame for not being enough. I want to meet the voice on my turf, in the karst-lined river valley, but a one-story home appears, no mountains around, in the middle of a flat, green field.

I am distracted. I try again.

Sand dunes this time, or one dune with an underground home emerging from the rise. It looks like a Cyclops eye beginning to wake, with a blue light emanating from it.

I want to converse with Shame.

It appears to me as a person I recognize and asking it to change its visage doesn’t work. 

Breathe. Try again.

Please change your visage, so I can listen to what you have to say.

Maybe I will start the conversation before they appear.

Tell me about yourself. Why do you want me to listen to you and carry this heaviness and self-hatred? What do you hope will happen?

The sand blows and pelts my skin. I close my eyes against it. 

I hear “PROTECTION.”

Whether it’s me or it, I ask anyway. Protection from what?

Silence.

Ugh, now I see the same person I know planting. And again, I ask it to change its visage.

What are your concerns?

THEY’RE YOUR CONCERNS.

Some of them. But the level to which they sit on my head make them worse than if you’d never sounded your alarms.

Maybe the answer is inside the house. I walk up to the rise and stand before it. The window concaves outward. Very thick glass. Bright blue, so bright, but I don’t have to squint.

If I’m meant to go inside, please let me know.

Rectangular panels slide open, from the top and bottom. The light is gone.

The door shuts behind me. I am standing in total darkness.

There is a peace to this darkness.

Flashes of sunlight slice through from my memory to keep me from becoming afraid here. But I want to be present with this vacuum.

So? 

I try to keep the impatience out of my tone, but it’s plain.

A hand on my arm. I don’t flinch.

A man, half my size. 

Who are you?

I AM AN ASSISTANT.

Who do you assist?

He pulls at my arm to follow him.

I cannot see the way, but I don’t trip. It’s just more blackness.

He seems like an elf to me. I suspect that’s just me not understanding.

We come upon a dimly, no, well-lit room full of bookshelves. I am comforted. I want to stay here.

He waits at my side while I look around. It’s clear these books are old and have been read many times.

What does this have to do with shame?

EVERYTHING. 

This is the word I hear though I don’t know if he spoke it.

Is this my destination for today? 

He nods. 

I don’t understand.

Oh my god, he holds the monk in his palm — the monk with the butterfly between his fingers — in miniature.

I tear up. I don’t know why.

The monk is still smiling.

That was too … easy, I say.

All I hear is It is the same.

I want to put the monk in my pocket with his friend, the butterfly.

Can I?

The assistant holds him out to me. Tilts his hand to let the monk slip into my palm. He feels cool, like a stone, because the boulder is underneath him.

I can barely look, because I don’t want to believe it.

Can you talk to me about my shame, this shame that dogs me?

The monk merely smiles.

Then he clambers up to his feet and stands on the boulder on one foot. The butterfly is gone; I don’t see where it went.

He waves.

I am already here, so I don’t understand who he’s waving to.

Is this a lie?

The assistant shakes his head sadly. As if I’ve come here too soon. Before I was ready. Full of my doubt and fear.

Driven by a different shame, the shame of not belonging, I want to leave.

It is the same still echoes.

I am not holding the monk anymore. He is gone.

The assistant stands with his hands clasped behind his back. He has a hat like a leprechaun’s. It seems wrong.

There are chairs here in the library. I don’t want to sit. Maybe that means I should.

Suddenly the assistant says, YOU HAVE TOLD YOURSELF THESE THINGS.

Can I un-tell myself?

This feels like another place for me to hide.