The Heart of The Matter

"What are you getting at?"

Fewer questions have vexed me so.

Laying out your point with precision and still met with confusion. 

"What are you getting at?"

Why, I am not getting anywhere...I have already arrived. Long accustomed you were to the idea that a woman's thoughts were half-baked ramblings, in need of a man's judgment to fully take form.

Sifters, I like to call them. The kind of person I could never connect with, and I realized this much too late.
For it didn't matter how thoroughly I explained myself, how neatly I arranged my words...they couldn't understand. Failed to.

Refused. 

"What are you saying?" when I've just said the very thing! When I've used no metaphors and underlined it in red pen. 
And I got it then, they'd heard me just fine. What are you saying? was not in fact a question of what I was saying. But the meaning they thought hidden behind my words.

They sift in between the lines, unsatisfied with what they find. And it vexes you know, to speak with someone who was not speaking to you. But engaged with the echoes of their own mind. They were not looking for an answer, but to confirm what they'd already decided long before you had any say about it. 

So frantic they were to dig up this hidden layer that they missed what was clearly on the surface. It's a foolishness that borders on evil. To administer an X-ray for an external wound and say, well...there's nothing wrong with you.

Eventually I'd give up altogether and say, Okay fuck yourself or whatever expletives came to mind.
I'm mad, and I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn't be. 

And they'd do a little victory dance and shout "Aha! Finally, we get to the heart of the matter!"