Photo: Creative Commons
~
in heightened instants
like the realization that the earth is moving
I see words
~
not in my head
but in the air
on the ground
~
whereas words emit images for most
images emit words for me
a sort of moving graffiti
~
busy floats around an impatient driver
linear abuts a business building
lonely whirs past a BMW on the freeway
~
summer attaches itself to leaves of a eucalyptus
caution drops from birds perched on light posts
momentary sits atop my breakfast
~
though I saw words for as long as I can remember
I thought others could read the air like me
but no one else could see what I could
~
there were words I didn’t know at the time
like commitment – there it hovered on a park bench
I thought others saw it too, but they couldn’t
~
reading in school was laborious at best
twice the words jumped from pages
and no one who asked understood my meaning
~
now most are logical associations
but there are other relationships that some would find strange
opaquely paired words and things
~
mandamus with books of good fiction
butterscotch with playgrounds
pareidolia with churches
~
I only see them at the right time
like fireflies, they flash but then are gone
only alive in synesthesia
~
yet when I recall those objects and places and times
the words are absent from my memory
leaving only an afterglow
~
though I escape the graffiti in my mind’s tunnels and shadows
I look in a mirror and words are everywhere
and I am always graffiti
~
literophanes.com 