You say that language is nothing but broken air,
and that words are merely dissonance.
Consonants are never constant,
and these sentences can be either
gifts or weapons, depending on who’s wielding them.

Voices across the wire:
feedback from another country.
These different frequencies confuse.
What is understood is only the space
between breaths
between thoughts.

You say that words are nothing but echoes.
These are rumors of salt within a body of ocean.
These are arrows that pierce the skin of sky
only to come back down again.
These are exhalations
birth and rebirth of oxygen
the breath of death in me even now
the years counting themselves down,
unraveling to nothing.

You tell me that in the end what I will remember is
not my birth name
not even the word for water in my own tongue.
No, in the end words are shattered
like so much glass.
When age blows cold right through us,
it will rattle our bones,
leave us mute.
.
What remains is all that is left unsaid.
What is lost is never sentiment, only accuracy.