Every time I open my mouth to speak, an invisible hand holds up an unseen megaphone. This megaphone is unlike any other – it is inverted.
My words pour into the wide opening, journeying towards the narrow mouthpiece. Each word is contracted, contorted, bruised and squeezed, as letters and sounds fall away on their pathway down the ever-narrowing tunnel.
As the words travel further and further from myself, the more I feel their meaning and intent wander, waver and fracture into a distorted, refracted composite of unintention. Their definition is lost in a whitewash of naive ignorance, transposed and transformed through this linguistic muzzle.
An uneasy feeling in my chest grows like a weatherballon, forcing my internal organs into the cramped corners of my body, as the words finally trickle out of the mouthpiece and into the world.
They are, seemingly, the words of a child.