You stand so near, looking at me. And all I want to do is cry out to you. Scare you. Make you feel this. Frighten you until you are too frightened to move your jaw. Too frightened to make your noise. Too frightened to frighten me.

And then I want to talk with you. Discuss. Share. In a way we both understand. Not in my way, but in another. A third way. A land of language that is not yours or mine, but ours. We have it in us. Just as we are all able to paint pictures and make music, and not lose anything in the process. We can agree on colors and sounds. These things are physical, they are already part of the land outside us. The land inside us is what we need to discover, and that land has always seemed invisible. Intangible. But then again, we’ve never looked for it. Never together.

It could be that now we are beginning to. It seems this inside land is getting clearer and clearer everyday. We seem to be approaching its borders. Or at least that’s what you keep telling me.

I don’t know how to disagree. Because I am attached to you, handcuffed, and I can only see what you can see. At first, it seemed easier to just go along with you. You wouldn’t hurt me if I went along. You were always stronger, and if I just went along, you wouldn’t hurt me. You always said that’s it’s never easy to have principles. I can only tell you that you were right, but that’s only because that’s all you will let me say. It hurts too much too disagree.

We can be so much more than this. Imagine the world we could explore. Connected by this third language, we could split up yet always be together. I could search over there. You, there. We could yell to each other about the things we find. We would keep exploring. To the farthest reaches of this world. Outside of it. We would be outside the small planet of ideas that we have now. We could look back on it and see its shape. Imagine the creature who, never having stepped outside, finally gets the chance to turn around and see its origin. We would be as newborn children. We would emerge into our own creature. Not your next step of evolution, or mine, but ours. Not you or me, but us.

But you wouldn’t understand. You will say that I am being idealistic. And though I want to disagree, to share with you this truth, that we are possible. That we is not an ideal but an actuality waiting to happen. That this is not a suggestion, but a prophecy of a world to come, a better world of beauty and love, of peace and possibility. Though I want to tell you all of this, I will not be able to.

The only words I have are the ones you’ve given me, or at least, they are the only ones you have agreed to let me use. And I’ve had them so long that I forget the ones I created. The words that first were mine before they were ours. I’ve forgotten so much so that the words I have now can only be considered yours. These words have become my thoughts.

As if my thoughts are birds flying around a sky, and though there are millions, enough to block out the sun, you only know the names of a few them. And every time I try to point out a new one, you just say, “No, no, no. That’s just another example of this one.”

You categorize my ideas. And you’ve been categorizing them for so long that I can’t even argue anymore. As if you made a specific point, and I said, “I don’t agree,” but you responded, “Well, just accept that for a minute and let’s see where it takes us.” But we’ve been trying to see where it takes us for so long that I don’t remember what it was you began with.

And that’s why I want to frighten you for a moment. Frighten you in such a way that you be quiet for once. Not only physically quiet, but intellectually quiet. I want to frighten you so that your mind is speechless. And there will be a moment. A single moment. A single moment of quiet. A moment where neither of our minds will talk.

A space between past and future. A space that is not filled. And we will look across this space. And you will see me, and I will see you. And together, we will step forward into that space. We will embrace. You will fill me all the way through. I will embrace you all the way through. There will be no space between us. It can be now. If only I could frighten you.