Words are still dangerous things.

Even now, when everything seems automated, when every caption, lyric, and love letter could’ve been made by a ghost in a server.

We still crave the human arrangement of syllables

clever, precise, a little vain.

Words that flirt back.

Words that make a melody before the music does.

I like to talk to the people I love 

with wit. It’s a ritual, really

It’s proof there’s still oxygen between us.

The spark that proves I’m still here, still capable of the soft combustion called feeling.

I thank God for that. For language. For laughter that bends the air.

Mexico gave me new habits.

A hammock, for instance.

Every place had one.

Morning coffee, gentle swing, the spine remembering it doesn’t have to hold everything upright.

It feels like peace designed by a genius.

And lime.

Fresh lime on everything.

That’s the enlightenment no one mentioned.

I’ve noticed, when I talk to men, I start talking like a man.

Strange mimicry.

Some reflex to meet them halfway in language.

I’d like to stop that.

I’d like to sound like myself again.