I have a helmet with built-in ear muffs, and I wear it when people start to raise their eyebrows, because that generally means they’re going to say something out loud. So even though I trudge through each and every conversational lake, dripping from waist down with sludge-like statements, thanks to the helmet, I never get infected.
My helmet has goggles too, that keep my eyes from stinging at the saliva flung mercilessly across that room at them.
Sometimes, however, I’m caught off-guard:
“Hello,” she says.
“Bluh____Gahwohoh!!” I say, snapping my helmet back into place as I trot away, having verbalized something strange and completely satisfying. My helmet bobbles as it floats on my air of confidence. I never fasten the chinstrap.
It feels good to be so strange, and I’m sure they feel good to have something to gossip about.
They say: “We are lost and small,
adrift if you will.
We are afraid,
but so must you be,
for we hold the power
of a spoken language.”
Though not in so many words.
Next door lives a girl called Chris, although, as she will inform you at a moment’s notice, that her name is actually Crystal. I think I like the fact that she is uncompromising in retaining her individuality. She sets my chest on fire and I try not to stare.
At home, my parents open wide and push a lot of air across the room regarding the condition of my life. I try to make sense of these wind-tunnels, but I fail. I wish I understood myself as they do.
On television, there is a man who sees so much of the world that he is content merely to talk about it. His name is Anderson Cooper. He calls himself AC. He sets my tongue on fire, and I roll it vigorously to extinguish the flames. This man tells me what everyone else does wrong because he knows. He has been EVERYWHERE, and believes that this entitles him.
I lash out at him and my helmet falls off. His words pervade my ears and I sink to the floor and cry.
I go to school and give everyone something to stare and whisper about. They clap their hands to their speech dungeons and say:
“La la la la la la…” like a beautifully oblivious chorus
This day I give them reason, for I am a new man. I stride briskly to centre stage and remove my helmet. I kiss Crystal and blood fills my veins as language fills the air around me.
I realize now that we are symbiotes, you the reader, and I.
