There are three routes from my brain
to get words from myself to someone else.
I can use my voice,
write my thoughts by hand,
or type with the tapping of fingers.
Recalling every last word from my brain
over the past 16, nearly 17, years
has grown to be a nuisance.
There are words buzzing about
like worker bees, droning and drifting,
as if waiting for the next command,
waiting at the queen bee's beck and call.
They bump into one another,
muttering hushed apologies as they hurry along.
From there, the lucky few
tear down through my being
and grab me by the throat.
At times, they jostle me awake
and I cannot help but whisper them to myself,
a feeble attempt to catalog and to remember.
More often than not, they die on my tongue,
dammed up by vocal cords and faltering folds,
because I lack the coordination
to stitch together the pieces
the way I want them at a moment's notice.
I am not a talker.
When that doesn't work,
they line up at attention, soldiers marching,
surveying the land before settling on the front lines,
manifesting in fists and coming out in jagged italics
on crumpled notebook papers.
They come effortlessly, pouring out too fast,
and much like ink, they bleed and spread
until it's all one messy mass,
a splattering marring white bedsheets
or staining callused fingers.
I am not a writer.
More often than not, they zip down interstates,
resting momentarily at my fingertips.
It's a liminal space between here and there,
dancing a fine line between existence and oblivion.
I type faster than I write, but it feels
less permanent and far more fluid,
a process that comes as easy as switching lanes.
They tap along, sailing across smooth roads,
backtracking every now and then if they miss their turn.
Typing comes easiest.
Despite my methods, there is something that still lacks.
I never know what, and it feels as if
I am doomed to remain unsatisfied,
to ponder over each piece again and again
until I have scrutinized it to death,
beaten it with a stick and bludgeoned it black.
There is ink everywhere, there are words choking me –
my fingers cannot stop moving and I cannot stop writing,
despite how everything is colliding in my head.
Thoughts smash into each other in brilliant flashes
and everything is on pause, but also fast-forwarding.
Perhaps that's why I still can't say
exactly
what I want to you.
