sadness and syntax

my adjectives are so small.

everything i say about myself is diminutive.

i am minuscule, to make sure you know what i think about me.

i am useless, i say about myself.

my adverbs are better because i do things, sometimes,

and when i do them i do them big, on a large scale –

on a real scale. adverbs are easy,

because they talk about what i do,

not who i am.

i have no prepositions because i am not against anything,

beyond or below or beneath,

like of off in near.

my grammar is specific:

i am frightened of nouns and verbs but i use them, it is only strength i have,

i am something and i do something, i tell myself.

i am descriptors: i am, i am, i am.

there is something underneath this that i have not found yet,

a person, maybe, full of syntax –

or semantics, even –

full of meaning.

my parts of speech are tiny, my adverbs weak and adjectives limp,

and i look down at myself,

language crackling in my ears, the nouns and the verbs

describing to me my failures.