A Language of You

As words have roots,
so do thoughts.
Some grow so deep
that you can see
how far someone has gone.

Every time we use a word,
  its whole story unfolds
  at once within us.
Yet, you had to travel there first,
  or find the one who did for you.

You cannot unlearn what has shaped you,
  but you begin to forget the journey
                            behind you,
erasing everything of who you were
except that singular instant
        which still remains.

That deeper place you made from pain
has no body, no face, no hands,
not even you;
as I write—or wrote—
that instant still remains,
even after its roots are forgotten.
But how can one touch
an idea, a feeling, a thought,
without inventing a language for it:
        our bodies,
        our hands,
        our faces,
and speaking through them?

A language of two.

This poem is a continuation of...

How much distance can live
within a language?
The one we choose
to express ourselves,
if there is more than one.
Read "Where Distance Begins"