My Cain and Abel are my words
Battling for the give and take of perception
They circle themselves
Poised to lash out or swiftly defend
I have used words as shields
I have hidden behind their illusion
Used the ambiguity of meaning and intent
To prevaricate and dissemble
Not from deviousness
But unconsciously
Or to mask my own fear and insecurity
Yet I find great joy in words
They are my playground and delight
Dancing meaning into dialogue
Reinventing clouds into rain
Or mining seams of elemental truth
I turn words into bouquets
Or scrawl them on signposts and sidewalks
Like some mad tagger
Illuminating the gray sameness
Of blank canvasses at midnight
Eventually the words turn me
Into a question
That I cannot answer
Feeling walled in
By the discreteness of each definition
Stamped out by our shared accommodation of
Conventional language
Which isn’t drunken shouts of expense account delegates
But a common delusion
That we can trade perceptions
Without trading our inner selves
Uncentering from each private strand of individuality
Into some union of sameness
Believing that words can be shared with exactitude
Forgetting the magical glow of transitory sunsets
And how impossible it is to grasp that moment
Let alone use words to describe the indescribable
David Trudel © 2013
