"I am a lip biter. You know, one of those people who doesn’t speak up but bites their tongue or, as in my case, the bottom lip.

One effect of long-term incarceration (21+ years) is that many of us know and live with each other for so long we become like family. A large, floppy dysfunctional family. Where everybody knows everybody else’s history and quirks. Over the years my lip biting has been noted, discussed, teased and blown wide open. “I know Elizabeth’s got something to say, she’s biting her lip,” “How was that meeting? Lemme see your lip.”

In a desperate effort to maintain some sort of emotional privacy (and tattered dignity), I have transferred my lip biting into wiggling the cap of my pen. This latest tool of self-control has left monster blisters on my thumb (which is unacceptable since my thumb, unlike my lip, is a vital piece of equipment).

Why not just speak up? I do–I do–but frequently I have found that to keep things moving forward and not fossilizing in emotional tar pits, it’s best to suck it up, turn the other cheek and bite my lip.

During the Middle Ages the adage “discretion is the better part of valor” came into popularity. Being a valiant courageous knight was more than charging at all comers; choosing one’s battles was an essential wisdom. There are some things in life that aren’t worth arguing.

Of course, the idealist, the general principled person would hotly disagree. I say they lead exhausting lives. Content, too, is everything. Freedom of speech is worth dying for but it’s not worth going to segregation.

Because this is a culture, a society of talkers, storytelling, and debate, reticence is misunderstood, scorned, judged. However in the culture of which I was raised saying a lot by saying very little was thought clever. The ability to be understated, succinct, wittily terse, quietly cool was immensely valued. Talkie people were abhorred. People who discussed their feelings were pariah, not because feelings were denied, but serious feeling is generally beyond the scope of words and discussing such things in public can trivialize them.

Passing feelings, on the other hand, are just that: momentary and therefore should not be given sufficient authority to weigh down others. I grew up learning that feelings and opinions could be dangerous obstacles and should not be aired without care and responsibility. Most often it’s best just to sit on them until certain of their import and consequence.

Which doesn’t sound spontaneous or creative but then again volumes of waffle smother authentic spurts of insight.

My thumb is forming a callous and it reminds me of my right to remain silent, to hold my thoughts and feelings to myself. I don’t have to complain. I don’t have to give voice. I don’t have to add to the talk. There is power and majesty in silence. And it’s a shame we don’t value it. After all with so many exercising their right to speak–who is listening?" (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, December 20, 2007)

Elizabeth Haysom is incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, in Troy, Virginia (ten miles east of Charlottesville). Her columns appear monthly under the general title, Glimpses from Inside. Here is an index to these columns.