Language

I love language, and I love with it and through it. True residents of my heart have their own languages with me. I often write for an audience of one. When he reads the same poem you do, the images resonate differently with him—he was there for all of it. The rest of you may never learn more than the aesthetic beauty of a Charleston staircase, a train on a trestle, Chick-fil-A, or ice blue eyes. That’s okay—the images resonate within and outside their surface meanings, as intended.

It’s no secret that I have secrets, delight in them—how can someone take something away from me if they don’t even know I have it? What I have of it is mine, every bit as much mine as my own gall bladder—you can’t see it either. Double-dog dare you to try to take either from me.

If I have secrets with you, I have language with you. Our language allows me to discuss secrets without anyone else knowing what I'm truly talking about, just my audience of one, who, in these instances, is the only one who matters. He knows the barrel of my daddy's shotgun, and knows things about me that no one else ever will, even if they purloin the letters. I've been betrayed and have betrayed too many times to not encrypt myself, although I'm not exactly sure what type of protection a crypt provides.

Nevertheless, encryption is preferable to crucifixion, and I've heard stories of escaping the tomb but none of climbing down from the cross, so I'll stay off the damned thing. If you need a martyr, I strongly suggest you look elsewhere. I'll bite the nails out of my hands and pull them bleeding from my ankles, maybe throw them at you before I crawl away, bleeding from every hole, just like always. I'll crawl down to the river and weep with a willow while my blood flows out of me down to the sea. The true residents of my heart will read the trail signs I leave, knowing that a leaf can be more than a part of a tree, that a tree can have secrets engraved in its bark, and all rocks are not carelessly strewn. Some are selected carefully for shape, texture, color, or how they fit the hand, how they catch the light and become something else for a brief, shining moment.

Brief, shining moments. There's not much else I truly care about enough to cultivate. When my psyche is healthy enough, I plant tomatoes, eggplant, thyme, basil, tarragon, cilantro, oregano, and sage. I've even dug some holes for some bulbs on various occasions, but right now, my camellias and hydrangea are with my mother, where they're safe. I have nothing leftover to give to them right now, and they would surely perish in my neglect. My efforts are focused on the moments I haven't created yet, and some of them need to be birthed into the world. Keep your epidural, I want to feel every push from the source--my hips, and I don't want your sterile forceps to think about touching my sacred moment, desecrating it with disinfectant. Send the obstetrician out of the room before he turns my moment into a squalling infant that needs to be nourished and cared for until self-sufficiency never arrives. I've served all the life sentences I'm serving, parole board or executioner matters not. You'll never put me back in that cell. It's not even there anymore--the explosion blew a hole big enough for Babar in that wall you loved so well.

Grieve the damn thing if you need to, but don't hold your breath until the flowers and sympathy cards arrive; just have your memorial, raise your glass, and move on. You can't carry a wall on your back, and we both know that no one can stay here for long. If you need a souvenir, choose a brick fragment that fits your hand and pretend it's a real rock, looping us back into the crux of the problem, this inversion of reality and fantasy. Drop that brick and take a picture of what's left to remind you, and follow my path through the trees. We'll regroup among the cypress, reenter the world our way-- you soaring into the sky, me diving into the river. They can keep their roads and highways.