The Boundary of Words

All my life I have held to the boundary of words

Honoured them

Like they were my neighbour’s little shrubbery

Outlining the edge of his lot and the border of mine

I have taken good care that they not spill over

Guarding them like the coffee sloshing in my cup

As I walk up the stairs

I have used them properly and well

Where the comma and semi-colon should go

And capitals where they should be

And grammar

So that the structure always holds

I have stood confused, looking on a field that has no order

Where all is chaos

Where unruly plants take root and elbow their way up to the sun

So not to be caught in the shade of the faster

I have grimaced for the oak that doesn’t complain

That this is the year of caterpillars

Knowing its leaves will be filled with repulsive holes

I guard my words

I do not want holes in my leaves.

I do not want my scaffolds to collapse

Or ants in my kitchen,

What if an axle should break and a word, like a tire,

Careens down the street

Killing some innocent bicyclist

Who was minding his own business

What if my words are laughed at

Like the barber messed up

And I am pressed to buy a hat?

Or like a rip in the ass of my pants

I hear snickers behind my back

My words are precious

They cannot go up on stage and grab the microphone

Like some whiny and shrill karaoke singer

Who can’t hear their own pitch issues

My words are my children in church

They must sit right and not fidget

Not draw attention to themselves

Some disapproving eye might look at me instead

The bad parent who can’t keep their family in line

I know the outline of words

I know when they fit together.

I know the trick of holding up puzzle pieces to the lamp

If the light shows through the cracks of the joints

I am annoyed when a word is off-kilter

A painting on a restaurant wall

Tilted slightly wrong

Wrecking my meal, but too public to fix

Words need a recipe

You can’t just ad lib with cumin

Or wing it with curry powder 

Words are teenage lovers in the basement

They can’t be trusted

Too much can go wrong

Words need store tags that set off alarms if they are stolen

Words need rules; they can’t just bud in line

Words need to know there’s an orderly method to things

Or they will crowd like sweaty commuters on platforms

Spilling onto the train like dirty floodwater

All hungry for a vacant seat, and damn their fellow riders

Words silently menace

Lurking shadow figures along the parkette path

That you need to cut through to get home from the bus stop

I have heard politicians contradict themselves one day to the next

Smiling, shameless, like every day started fresh

With no history

And memories wiped clean

And no such thing as video footage

And I have looked into the vacant, desperate eyes of high-school teachers

And PTSD soldiers

Silently mouthing screams from classrooms and trenches,  

Where no lawyer cavalry could make it through the enemy fire

Or beat back the onslaught

With shields of legalese-covered foolscap

So that the indemnifying party might agree in whole and in principle to defend

And hold harmless the identifying party from all claims, liabilities, damages,

losses and expenses arising from or related to the performance of the agreement

And I stand helpless in my own trench

A stranger far from home, bleeding in a foreign land

Clutching my resume, waiting for the job interview

My words have walked out of my brain en masse 

A wildcat strike

I have reached for words like my wallet to pay the cashier

But I left it at home, or in the car, or lost it

My well-rehearsed foreign language phrase

Elicits nothing but a blank face of incomprehension

From the German waiter

And confronted in a lie

I have pitched and rolled like a jet fighter

Releasing panicked streams of diversionary flak

And no one was fooled

I once saw the truth of language

Tripped out on Ayahuasca

How it coats me

Until I don’t know if I’m the candy or the apple

And how each morning I open my closet of words

And pick out my favourite ensemble

The shirt I look cool in

And then I know how to say “I”

And know who it is who is running late

And who is being pissed off

By all the shitty drivers on the road

I hold to the boundary of words, but sometimes

I will take too many of the free mints on my way out the restaurant

And freely use emojis like a twelve-year-old