aphasia kerry the inability to form or comprehend language (because of damage to certain brain regions) (also symptom of an epileptic seizure) to read write speak it’s a pretty word, could be the name of someone’s pampered daughter, sounds almost ecstatic but it is like waking up from a dream over and over like walking into cobwebs 210807 ... kerry see: irony 210808 ... raze we give such beautiful names to painful things the etymology of an accident tripping over its own meaning in its rush to be born 210808 ... kerry i used to write every day and every night and all i thought about were words, and i cared more about words than sleep or food gathering, stealing, thwarting, adorning sometimes arranging carefully like stitching a quilt and other times more reckless and sometimes flinging a door open and throwing my entire self through it (ryan fell out a window two storys up because he was dancing too close to the sill i wrote a story about it, kind of— i wrote a story that was a mudslide devouring everything in its path it felt good i was covered in it. but now writing stories is like searching for a zipper that doesn’t exist so i can crawl out of myself, get some fresh air, it is so stifling and muggy in here, you could cut the atmosphere with a butter knife) and when i’m near the edge of anything tall i hold my breath because i don’t trust myself i was always that way, ready, again and again tiptoeing to the edge of a precipice, and my whole self inflating and it wasn’t such a bad way, such a bad place, to be perched like a little gargoyle with my chin on my fist contemplating the distance to the bottom 210808 ... kerry story’s and stories and storeys 210808 ... kerry i struggle to make sense of it. mute and perhaps deaf if deaf could be rushing water or white noise or the rumble of an earthquake. but it passes. you look so frightened and i reach out a hand unsure if there is anything in my palm—who knows, who knows? and it feels wet and cold but where is water in all this concrete? what i would like to say with this gesture the only thing i can think of is, Take a deep breath, shut up, and calm down. you ask if i’m okay and i nearly laugh, i feel it in my chest, the laughter, just as i feel the words i try to form in my mouth, moving and twisting like snakes, and i cant hear it. it is muscle memory i suppose, being able to laugh in total silence, and my laughter is unnerving to you. i wish i could tell you it’s a compulsion. i wave a hand. Fine, fine, says the hand. I need a moment is all. and while we wait for him to pick me up so i don’t have to walk back you and the dogs sit with me, and the dogs lick my hands and ears and i don’t mind it. you ask if i want to hear one of your gross stories that you think you are famous for and i say absolutely, because i love hearing most stories people want to tell about their past, and you tell me about wearing brand new white pants on the first day of school and having your period and wearing a sweater tied around your waist all day to hide the giant red again. i’m coming back into myself and able to hear myself chuckling along with you. Yes, that does sound like a terrible experience. 210808 ... kerry hate typos—it’s stain, not again (and wondering if i should bother correcting them or just ignore them because they are inevitable) 210808 ... raze (even your typos are great, kerry. i read "red again" and had no idea it wasn't what you meant to say. i just thought it was a really cool little unexpected touch.) 210809 ... kerry ha, then i'll make sure to leave them be. 210809 ... kerry it was summer and we were all 25 years old. 25 is a good number, a shiny penny, an arrival. still young but old enough to have history and victories and scars. this was a tradition—every july 4 the three of us’d go to iz’s parents house in the sticks, in rural alabama. we bought fireworks right as we crossed the state line. i still have one, a little cardboard hen filled with gunpowder. on one side is printed Hen Laying Egg. (it sits on a red shelf next to a picture of my great-grandmother, who was a drinker and a smoker and a joker and when she decided she was done on this earth that was that, because “what sally says, goes.”) and we ate barbecue at betty’s bar-b-q and watched the twilight zone and got stoned on the golf course in the wet grass and set off roman candles in the empty parking lot. no one lived out there, just the bats and frogs and possums. we were cackling, we were hopping and giggling like mischievous children, our friendship was built on fun and misbehaving. we were effortless. this particular summer mary said she found the only other lesbian in town at that cantina, and the leathery old woman at the thrift store with the gin blossom asked me if i’d found jesus and i said “mercy me, of course” and she gave me a discount and we chuckled about it for days. we drove along the winding road in the talladega forest; it was beautiful and full of dappled light and kudzu and little critters, all so familiar, and as we climbed higher the mountain gained a kind of crescendo and my heart lifted as if maybe we could drive right up into the clouds, i would've been okay with that, why not? if mary got sick of driving i’d take over. but then we spiraled down again and we parked the car and tromped in a little line through the forest to the swimming hole. iz sat under the waterfall like a blue-eyed buddha and teenagers were drinking cheap beer near the top of the waterfall and daring each other to jump off the slippery rocks. i was basking on a rock like a lizard, loving the sound of the water pressing its fingers through the river stones, and the little fish that nipped at my toes. we had beer and sandwiches and chips and weed. mostly we snoozed and talked and took pictures of each other. at some point i fell asleep. mary swam the most. iz went exploring around the woods a bit and then came back and sat under the waterfall again. i don’t know where i got that mosquito bite. i don’t think at the swimming hole--i didn’t put my head but the more you ask me that, the less sure i am. 210809 ... kerry didn't go underwater didn't see it coming for years i_thought_i_was_insane i looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself i didn't know what to do with my hands, legs, arms tongue any part of me inside or out there is something thrashing around inside me it's buzzing like a little mosquito in my ear, preventing me from hearing my own thoughts, my own voice 210809 ... Soma When i said “head _bread” i really meant “brain” and I’m sorry that it took me three hours to remember what we are supposed to call it. 240907 what's it to you? who go blather from