Remember back
when you
first began
to read
books that weren't simply
handed to you,
and
you came
across those weird words?
Easy, even
pretty to look at,
but hard to pronounce
ones,
such as ego
and unorthodox.
Some that tasted
like dry, brittle
bricks in your mouth—misanthropic,
intrigue,
counterintelligence,
for instance.
And naturally, those words
that shimmered
and slid
down around and in between
the moist
folds of your brain,
stimulating it
in a way that was
excruciating
precisely
because it felt so nice?—ones
like guile
and callow,
impressionist
and furtive
curt
and agnostic.
Remember
not only when you read them,
but when you
first—understood? Not
what they meant,
but the way it felt
to collect things like that.
To keep them
and to hold
smell and save
and never use them,
like your favorite crayons
in an old cardboard box?
And how they made you
feel better?
Less alone,
less afraid
to dominate
your own disdain.
But then,
after a while,
and as more
and more strange
ideas were hurled out at you,
you realized
that eventually, you'd have to
pick yours up and
use them?—
realized
that silence, for you,
could never be
a shield—not when it
when it already made
such a good sword.
