I pound clay onto the table
to say what I don’t have the words for
and what remains is neither beautiful
nor silent.
I pound clay onto the table to feel my body
impact a body
to feel soft flesh in my grip
and what remains is neither human
nor object
but the act of touch, solidified.
I stand in the dark on the shoulder of a highway
inside a fog of impact
and in the blackness, I can see nothing
but the passing headlights tell me
it is destruction I am looking at.
I walk in the dark along a hill
of submerged caskets
to the foot of a landslide
and in the blackness I can see nothing
but I know it is destruction I am looking at.
I let tiny, sharp teeth gnaw at my hands
and bite at my hair
hoping that this is affection I am receiving.
And collect little slips of yellow,
as artifacts of a love that is not yet
and may never be.
I breath in the softness of her face,
then breath in the scent of uncountable roses
as I walk in the late night, early morning
towards my own bed.
Neither rejected nor chosen.
I listen to her voice as she tells me it is language
that she cannot give me,
the container in which a “we” could exist.
I listen to her words,
seeing her past on their glassy surface,
knowing that the body is flesh
but the self is built from stories.
I look at myself in a round mirror
and I know that it is mortality I am looking at.
I ask myself if I already carry enough language.
If outside of the words I contain,
I could be a body,
like clay in her hands.