"Wasn't that grand?
Full of subservience, hierarchies.
Gratuitous displays, sublimated rivalries.
I feel completely at home,
With one important difference:
they read me like a book.
Once I did the teaching...now I am taught."
~~~
it's difficult to discern which voice is which.
the author alludes me,
it shouldnt...
i know.
the native speaker would not perversely speak of joy. i could be wrong. haven't i been so incredibly wrong? but that particular term...too close, too explicit. how much damage can one do to the perfectly damaged? that addition would be an accomplishment, another scar...as if one more is needed?
the non-native speaker could not possibly understand the depth--the horror of the term; but understands the affront and the effects of its mention? the one who read through the scars, through the damage...listened to a voice that abstractly could have been the readers own. it could not be this one, i'm sure.
~~~
"i-am-laugh-ing-AT-you"
~~~
freude...only freude...forever freude.