Mute
I only wanted to say.
On your mat lies motionless what looks to you like an outstanding bill. What of the hope this letter knows folded and sealed inside its envelope?
What if it only looks like a duck, what then? What if the duck were to hold its tongue?
(the slave is one who has his tongue cut off, who can speak only by looks, expressions, faces)
The duck leans over, eyes aflame, even blushing like a debutante, mouth slack, slightly open as if desiring to say, yet afraid to spoil the game, afraid to straighten out into imprecise and unforeseen shapes.
After all, a crime is only born when it is named, not when a nameless act first enters into the world.
I don’t mean to be cruel, but dreams can’t forever stay dreams, can they? Just look at it! A dramatic pause, pregnant, but then, what, stillborn? Making for weight and pressure where need not be any.
Come back! I didn’t mean what I said! It didn’t come out how I wanted it to! But instead how it always does.
Consonants make the progression of voices peristaltic. Articulation is the set of the knots of temporary prohibitions where breath pushes.
I staged my death. While away, I learned the bogeyman’s birth name. It’s the only thing written in my letter to you, which I’ve been writing for most of my adult life.
Its every word, myself I know, but now say, what of the tragic actor who plays only to empty houses?