Synesthesia

Find a word. Adjective, verb, noun, adverb, preposition, participle. The dictionary is yours to steal – so take a word.

Maybe it’s etched into your skin already. There are words on my arm, although they are letterless. I’ve chosen something different this time.

Perhaps it’s chosen me.

(If you prefer, and if it suits you, let a word find you.)

Linger over the sound of your word. Is it a love-sick cat, wailing and keening against the wind? Is it the grumble of a distant bass-line? Is it a heartbeat, a wave, a siren, a seagull?

I have my word, although it isn’t mine to keep. Have you found your word?

Is it anything like what it’s meant to be?

This word - pull the sticky tendons of letters from the muscle of it. Dig into the marrow of your word and taste it.

(I might change metaphors without warning. Follow the words closely)

My word is two syllables. My word starts with a flick of my tongue against the roof of my mouth. My lips form an O and my tongue curls. A hiss, and another flick of my tongue shapes a thud at the end of it.

My word is water, both in the taste and sound of it. My word is also glass. It is sharp and the edges of it cut me.

(This is a metaphor. A word cannot cut me. Neither can a word be held in my hand like a sliver of mirror.)

I hold my word in my hand, like a sliver of mirror. I look in the mirror and read my word, backwards. I say my word backwards. It is filthy.

Think about your word. Taste the sound, and hear the color of it. Roll the word on your tongue and swallow it. I don’t need to know your word, I only need the texture of it.

My word is cold. My word is tundra. My word is breath. You can see right through it. I sigh and my word escapes me. My word is everything but what it was meant to be.

Tell me about your word. What is the truth of it?

(There is no truth to it. It is everything but what it was meant to be.)

What do you want it to be?