shapes and sounds we teach our children

and I can let the days run over me like water. without stopping to catch a moment / tie it to a page with ink the current is quite capable of taking everything that matters. my pen and paper are my only defenses in the face of forgetting and being forgotten by the spaces between being and not. but sometimes I am too tired. and sometimes the words don't come, or what is / has been remains beyond definition / the scope of any shape or symbol drawn from our lexicon.

words are strings of symbols. we spit them into air and ears and paper in pleas to make sense of a moment / feeling / ourselves. we try to agree about what they mean. but even when they work they are rarely enough. they only matter when we want them to. words are shapes and sounds we teach our children.  feelings are evasive as the clouds. cameras and pens are fickle tools. our minds aren't any better.