anna winham

alexia

the greatest gift i have
drips off me the easiest.
i want you
to leave me languageless,
lips with only breath.
words repeated lose
one meaning and pick up
another. i want you
to make a nomad of me.
a gift is a debt.
a word runs away from itself.
i want to run in-
to you.
syntax spills out of me
like so many secrets. you
accuse me of expertise. my
tongue is a border
i want to dissolve
into yours. the greatest gift i have
is in quarantine. i have
tried to give it to you anyway.

alexithymia

you cannot taste your own tongue, i think,
or maybe only mine is tasteless. no
measuring stick on reality, i pour out
lies about myself: this is the miracle of language.
untruths/imaginations
freedom dreams/dreams of myself.
i build universes inside an hour,
inside a page, inside a tasteless brain. i cannot
imagine
why you like me: me i cannot imagine, or
imagine in infinite iterations.
words are slow. i am already
not what i was. i am always
practicing my loss of myself,
spinning words like enough lies will save me.

first published by QA Poetry

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