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After Dinner With Diderot we stood on the bottom stair and kissed the tip of her tongue nearly upon mine and she said -Tell me what you see when you close your eyes. i see a land of words lost and forgotten unborn and abandoned. where the streets are busy with all of the hellos and goodbyes all of the pleases and thank yous that go missing everyday. they bustle about upsetting the bags of kindly old beg your pardons tripping over the shuffling feet of elderly excuse mes. from a nearby public house where last night is never forgotten the laughter of witty retort and keen observation spills drunkenly while across the street the idle hands of curiosity swing open the doors of a library built upon writers’ blocks. in the school house children’s unasked questions are answered but never once are the cries of i love yous and i’m sorries rocking in the asylum but forgotten prayers whispered in the church soon give way to voices uplifted in hymns remembered. i see a sullen bone orchard awaiting stilled tongues outside the stained glass windows and i see the dark woods beyond where some unspoken intentions have grown feral and hungry. i look past the trees farther and further still to where the sea crashes and foams against the sheer cliffs and there sit all of the words left unsaid out of fear staring off towards where they once came from lacking the courage to jump to their foregone conclusions. i opened my eyes and it was gone a bubble that floated away. or burst or never was to begin with.