My words tumble off my lips and I try to grab them, yank them back in between my teeth before they shatter the air before me. It is hard to breathe and harder to speak and my words betray me once more.

It is strange how 26 letters can conspire. They dance constantly, and their linked elbows twist together to make my thoughts escape the fortress of my mouth and tongue.

It is strange and wonderful when they exist
in silence.

The first words came to me unwittingly, spat from another mouth into my tiny hands.

My words are only a Xerox copy of my mind, wavy and distorted and black and white, but I haven’t yet found a way to print it out in color on thick, glossy photo paper. These copies surround me and thicken the air until my face is blurred.

Sometimes words betray me, form teeth and decide to bite. It is a painful bite – some of them store venom in their fangs – but those fangs always melt back into soft, toothless gums and I forget the lacerations
they created.

But I can make them dance, too, or I try to. Often they disobey my choreography and stumble to the ground, but when they follow the beat of my music it can be beautiful and dangerous.

Sometimes I catch myself dancing along.