Some words long to be
manipulated by mouths,
live in silent desire to be thrust into teeth by a dancing tongue,
drip like honeyed sunlight dappled by autumn-rich leaves and conifer needles,
bring lips together,
mmm hmmm,
open them slowly,
play with plosives stumbling through the shadows of darker phonemes
with sinister linguistics, nasty depravity masquerading as virtue, the gloppy, cloying sweetness molasses-thick, nearly suffocating you with sharp sugar crystallizing into shards, daggers digging into your voice with every painful, cruelly honest word: the horror of this constructed truth in full Gothic glory, a house of cards that makes most people hold their breath and tread carefully past the crumbling foundation,
wade hip-deep into thick diphthongs
before spouting percussives into thin air,
breaking the oppressive spell,
lounging in long vowels and soft sibilants
before laying down with ease,
ideas detonating, cherry-picked fiction
stripped from context, stuck in the mud
watching the sky drift by
in clouds of sound.
It’s all gone
because I kept breathing.
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
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Comments (1)
This piece feels like a rich, immersive exploration of language itself—sensual, chaotic, and gothic all at once. It’s fascinating how it turns the simple act of speaking into something visceral and almost mythic.