Inexpressibility
You can be what I can be you could
But also you can be what I can’t be
But never ever what I was or will be, really,
Or even am cuz we’re the same but different
But whatever you can or can’t or could or would be
Whatever it will be you’ll have to name it
‘Cause that’s what we do, we name things
But after you name that thing you’ll know you shouldn’t have
And made into a can or can’t or couldn’t or shouldn’t
Just by naming it you give it a life in the world of names
And words ’cause just saying it out loud means limits
The thing never had before—you’ll know you shouldn’t have
Because you will have corralled it, saddled it
With something it was more pure without
Back when you couldn’t speak of it with any skill
And now the best you can be is
A murderer of silence, a parent to the Bright Idea
Who grows to know what is finite and, because of that, is lame
You can be or won’t be but let’s not speak of it
****
Jason Lee Miller, MFA, is a curriculum developer, technical writer, and composition instructor at Eastern Kentucky University. Those jobs actually pay him, and he’s thankful for that; still, he’d rather sit at home and write books. Book reviewer for the literary e-zine, GloomCupboard, Jason’s work, poetry and fiction, has appeared in The Bluegrass Accolade, Blood Lotus, The Copperfield Review, Danse Macabre Du Jour, Dew on the Kudzu, The Legendary, and State of Imagination.
