Awkward instant
            when action
precedes knowledge of the response
& energy flows
between two spectators
            bewildered
by the power of reflex.

Ridiculous instance
            when we notice
the patterns that exist,
            but these
strange sounds that we make
can’t quite equal what
we want to say,

& so they send us back where this began:

trying to make you understand
            what I think I am,
what it is
         that I think
I want to say;

yet every attempt I make
        to understand you,
            & who
                you think you are
seems leads me astray…
 
but still the desire remains
to recover
some small hopeful glimmer
            of sense:

closer first & then farther apart as
blood fills then empties from
            the chambers of our hearts,

eyes open wide,
            & try to hide the gaze
that contains every hideous mistake,
every time we rejoiced & complained*…

That specific vibration we call speech
isn't enough to reach you,
so again I remain where I began:

the words serving only
to obscure the meaning.

All that I want to say has already
been said in a different way:

“I am with you, and know how it is”**

The task is to try & believe in it…

*Rejoice – Julien Baker
** Crossing Broklyn Ferry – Walt Whitman