The destination is in need of construction
My character is now that of an ice machine,
pulsing strokes like the flash of an instant message.
While lying unfettered in a hotel hallway,
seeking resolutions to matters unsaid and
pursuing definitions for words which I have
already spoken,
abruptly,
from inside
my refuge of language,
the schisms begin to breach,
splintering their way through the construct,
slicing, dislocating, and revealing—
filtering their way through the foundation,
isolating the familiar paths of least resistance and
exploiting the weaknesses supposed therein,
until the edifice slowly subsides,
the façade fractures,
and the surface splits.
I am forced back,
regressing to a time when I had no need for communication.
* * *
A sliver of foreign sun wakens me here,
in a city on no map,
in a place where I don’t know the names of things I know,
inside a person whom I cannot understand
No,
wait …
there must be a word that exists in all languages
to define this type of
loneliness.
(The snow finally breaks
with the indifference only weather can sustain,
covering all that lies before it,
supplanting my cold, gray shroud of sanctuary.)
1. Kuboaa: the undefined word invented by the unnamed protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger