the napkin i use to wipe my hands is not an absolver. there is no true remover. nothing is ever completely resolved.
there is only the illusion of complete resolution, the allusion that something is sterile. nothing is without flaw. the napkin merely wipes the surface, moves the mess, removes the visual proof. but the evidence is always there. the stain is never entirely omitted.
it's the way white-out only covers the unwanted error. the truth is only hidden. the past has not been corrected, just disguised. this is how apologies work. the way a painter can paint over their mistakes. the way a film gets edited. how computer software is debugged. patches. cuts. coats. it's all reality, just photoshopped.
it's how pain-killers work. they hide the pain, they don't relieve it. a patch only covers the hole in a pair of jeans, it does not correct it.
there is no true remover. nothing is ever completely resolved. there is only the illusion of complete resolution. so what then about the stain? what do we do with the remnant? how do we deal with the scars? how do we move forward? how do we reach a conclusion?
it's what you do when the clothes come out of the drier and your favorite shirt still has that small coffee stain on it. you don't ever really want to part with it. it's what you do with your favorite pair of jeans with the hole in the leg. it's what you do with your favorite couch with the mysterious, unexplainable spots on the cushions.
it's what you do with anything you love; you keep it, you wear it out, you hope that it has the same determination as you do.
i realize that sometimes i waste breath as if this voice were not a caged bird -- but it is -- and sometimes i act as if this body were not the cage -- but it is -- and this mouth is the cage door, and this tongue -- this tongue is the slipperiest of skeleton keys.
and i know that sometimes i waste breath with adjectives describing how beautiful this cage is but it is not -- and sometimes i wax nostalgic about how the interior of this cage is comfortable but it is not -- it is vascular and dark and warm and damp and it’s bone and it’s hollow, and this voice -- this voice would prefer the warmth of a nest.
but were it not for this cage -- this voice would not have the air that flutters it’s wings, were it not for this cage -- this voice would not have the vibration that carries it’s song, and were it not for this cage -- this voice would not have the wherewithal to consider itself a bird.