These Words Are Not My Words
- Richard Mather
- Jul 9, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
By Richard Mather
The open air is hotly thick with sound.
Words like mosquitoes swarming
Around me, pestering
To feed, to infect.
Winged logoi
Buzz my head,
Biting,
Inciting sickness;
Parasites
Inciting violence,
Signifying illness.
My ears are lips swollen.
Words speak too much.
Retreat I must
Go inside as a priest might
Return from the noisy city
To the silent cloister.
Into silence I will not let words follow.
The hospital is vacant.
Around here is nothing
Of significance.
All is unfamiliar, indescribable.
No bodies around.
Even the mendicants
Out there running
Mouths off in a fever lost
To the throng of speech.
But in here I think I am not;
I am where I do not speak.
I must be patient.
Lying down in a bed that isn’t mine
— Pillows so strange they are clouds —
To sleep, to dream
I am beneath a sun.
The air is hot and thick with sound.
Words are mosquitoes
Swarming around me.
They pester
To feed, to infect.
Biting,
Inciting sickness.
Parasites
Exciting a virulent dream.
Retreat,
Retreat I must
Not let words follow me inside.
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Copyright © 2024 by Richard Mather
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