On the sixth day we invented the words. You had been so quiet for so long that we barely recognized your voice as it burrowed through the soil of your desperate anguish. But there they were, all the words we used to have, even if they didn’t look the same. They used to be so strong and stern, the words we used to roll our boulders up mountain sides. But when the struggle became too hard, when our eyes were bleeding and our hands were burning, we were fools and left the words and kept the boulders.

But on the sixth day we invented all the old words, and even if they were now crooked and slight like the feet of old sparrows, they were still the same. And when you finally came to me, you came in the night, you came carrying words all over your body.

I want you to read me, you said, read me as fast as a burning piece of paper.

August, 2010