Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Extrapolating the You Voice

You underestimate, perhaps, the significance of 1988, but that's probably because it's my history, not yours. Or is it? Is it yours? Or is it mine. Theoretically.
What if you were not mine. You. You. And you.
Second person is a voice that is jarring and dissodent. Nobody uses the "you" voice unless they are asking for attention, being ostracized, being obsolete. Passive "being." Academically, death. Postmodern. Are you the protagonist of this story or are you the metaphor for a vernacular threat to high culture? YOU decide.
I met with potential adoptive mothers in a restaurant on Dickson Street. You remember Fayetteville. You remember the fevers after immunization, you remember the first day of kindergarten, you remember you kicked your legs so hard when I came to pick you up at daycare. You remember I taught you to read: cat bat mat gnat fat sat... you. You remember? My mother said I wasn't feeding you well enough. At least that's what I was told. You and I studied words in a notebook, way at the top of the hill in Madison County. Too, two, to, zoo, you. You. I opened all these books for you. You opened all these books. You wrote words and all these words.

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