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Words are the most beautiful thing that separates Homo sapiens from the rest. I regret that I have to use such a watered-down version of my own at times.

Only when I write do I not feel like a fool

A young, colloquial, sweet-hearted bumble

Only the bone-words, weeded of Midwest relatability, convey

the rings of my oak, deeper veins of my leaves

sharpened gaze of my crown, buds of thought in my breeze

To them, I am not round. I am a slim young woman. I have a nice smile. I speak like paper sleeves.

To tell you the truth, when I can't sleep I turn to the grammar book on my nightstand, and Animal Farm has never left me without streaks on my cheeks

I promise, I'm diff-

I want to speak when they mention offhand a weekend in Baraboo of the ferns and the harsh bluffs and the welcome reminder of death and fragility in that cutting stone, welcome because you repent for thinking you were not that small, and the joy at this relief, this nothingness, this earth return, but I say I love the bluffs and the nature and, you know, it's just so pretty there with the lake, and I scrape my brain out like glaciers through Devil's Lake a thousand years ago, water marks like corpse-gray ripples on the unpolished leaf-strewn quartzite, yet-

Why can't I be as eloquent as the lily jewels?

Maybe eloquence is a discipline

Maybe eloquence is a dance

Maybe eloquence is sleep, only possible if you forget all, even that you own eyes

There there, back to sleep, where conclusions are as unnecessary as sense

Has your pinning-down, this birdhouse-building, been as free as the sky and trees?

Maybe you are a fool

Author's Note

Feel free to leave critical reviews; I would love to improve this one :)