It was almost time. I tucked in each too puffy corner of my white comforter. I centered my pillow. I brushed my hair slow and put it up in a tight bun without checking the mirror. One bobby pin for some short hair in the back that I never cut that short. I put my pajamas, not the penguin ones, on the bed and folded them into a square so they’d fit neat on my pillow. I washed three white mugs and two coffee crusted spoons and put them to dry on a small white towel. I folded three pieces of underwear and threw away the maroon tank top that had a cartoon Frida Kahlo on it wearing glasses like mine. I put on a dark green tank top and my most comfortable blue jeans. I mentally checked my car for my iPhone charger. I grabbed my tote bag, put my sunglasses on and then opened the front door. It was too early. Still, it was almost time to break up with myself. You couldn’t do it. It was time to pretend I could control how much else would break.
When I first started writing this dictionary it was because I felt like I was an intruder in this world, and I was made aware that the world agreed with me. I found myself living at a depth others found inconvenient at best. I started writing it because I thought, if I can get people to see words as sacred carriers of meaning, they’ll start telling me the truth because they’ll start telling it to themselves. They’ll get to know themselves and so they’ll accurately self-report. I thought, if people could just understand what the big juicy words like love, time, and betrayal really meant to them, and how exactly they awakened their complexes, things could really change for those of us who collected heartbreaks like trophies. Maybe I was trying to save us. Maybe I was trying to save them.
I started writing this dictionary because I was tired of trying to define things for people when they would ultimately betray their own memories of their mouths. I got tired of hearing myself say, ‘But you said...’ I felt sure the solution was in going deeper because being in love means I will shake hands with your demons instead of locking the door which ultimately means being in love is synonymous with staying.
My reasons for writing this dictionary change all the time. Is it because I’m still trying to define the word communication to someone important who I was sure would understand if I could just find the right words? Sometimes. I was in love and some part of me still knows that means, stay.
I have Chiron in Gemini in the 8th. I’m writing this because I’ve learned much about the words that have hurt me the most when those using them pretended they were ensouled. Now, when I hear someone claim love, I ask what they mean and if their response is, “I feel so alive around you!” I know they’re experiencing me as their own disowned erotic charge and will expect me to be that archetype and not a person. I know that when I have needs, I will suddenly lose their interest. I know this because I’ve often been treated like a taboo, like vacation air in a tin can. Now, when someone says, “You’re like a breath of fresh air!” I know it means they haven’t breathed life into their own words yet.
These days, those I love have to meet the prerequisite of feeling fully alive, pre-me. Their life should be a breath of fresh air. I’m uninterested in landing as erotic to someone who has historically suppressed erotic energy in their life. Being metabolized as taboo is boring to me. I know what it leads to—absolutely nothing.
This makes me wonder if love is really resonance because, people don’t stay in a foreign country for very long when they don’t know the language, when they have no personal interest in learning it.
When I came up with the definition for rage: gripping my steering wheel a little harder every time I remember someone I loved, who moved on as a ghost, upset with me for showing them they were dead, I was at peace. When someone leaves, they take with them the version of you they inspired. There’s too much mourning so, rage comes in clutch. But, this brand of rage was ultimately an extroverted helplessness that reminded me to keep looking for my power.
Defining these words gave language to ineffable and lonely pains. I found the medicine and defined those, too. I realized I was discovering and channeling them more than I was writing them when others told me I’d found what they meant, too. I did it. I’d built a bridge and found the others.
I write the definitions now because it makes me feel more like an ancient soul translator and less like an intruder in this world. I write them because by sharing, I see that I am not alone in the depths. That other people are looking for these definitions just like I am. I write this dictionary now because I think the world needs it. I think the entry for love will be the longest. It’ll be pages and pages and pages long and whoever reads it can give it to their person and they can decide what they mean by love and in my old dream, maybe they don’t break each other’s hearts because they know their own. I want to dream this childish dream, with you. I want to ensoul the English language, one word at a time. I want us to remember that children are closest to soul.
Below is this installment of A Poet’s Dictionary definitions. I hope you come along. Oh, and feel free to suggest words you think need some translating. If you’ve ever told someone, “but you said…” you have a few.
definitions
creativity: 1. intimacy with God
2. the closest thing to time travel
sadness: a slow bird who feels like she’s falling
love: 1. midwifing old pain into new life
2. opening your mouth instead of gritting your teeth