storytelling

I am not a storyteller. I want that to be clear: there are uncountable stories to be told and I wield my words with precision but I am not the one to tell your plotlines. Your arcs, your climaxes and your denouements are your own and I hope they unfold according to plan but I will be sitting cross-legged in the corner with my chin in my hand.

I can give you the background to the scrapbook of your life, I can do that for you. I’ll supplement your snapshots, I’ll sketch the colors of the sky; I’ll kneel by the rivers and the oceans and the frozen lakes and I will give them words. I leave your life like a thief, like I’ve taken what’s mine, and I scatter my words on your shores.

My chin is in my hands and I describe things desperately. I coax my life with my language, like I can talk myself into existence: the colors, the sounds and the smells.

I am not a storyteller but I want to tell my stories. I kick my feet in silence, in the frozen north; I am inert and graceless, biting my thumb.