If you wanted to know how my head works

You only had to ask

It works with a sound of ‘tick-tock-sha-clack’

tick tock

shaaaa

clack.

Processing and processing

thinking, always thinking

wheels and gears, gearing and wheeling

Making bridges and burning them

Finding paths in the forest canopy

Crashing through my own in evergreen hills.

tick tock shaaaa

clack.

Clickity-clack, it says

As it jumps around and catches air

As it whirrs down in the middle of a test

As it runs away in conversation

(it’s in cohorts with my mouth)

 

You see, my mouth

It doesn’t work like my head

My head goes and goes and goes

and stops

in the bobble-head way

My mouth is the heavy stone

On the tip of a mountain

It takes strength and

A wrenched face to get it moving

But once it does it makes many sounds

the smooth flow of the old

trebuchet, flinging

the background sound of ‘sui-na-gok-yabber’

 

sui, sui, sui I say

na-na-na-na,                                                                                                                 is my stutter

too much five-track mind

for my one-track mouth, so comes

enthusiasm in each sound                          gok

and yabber is all everyone else hears

 

that’s okay, I understand

my nods translate into gestures

but my gestures can’t translate into words

(so I don’t, I hide, and tuck away)

and my motor-moving-massive-mouth

covers up the pulse of my heart

my heart that stumbles, trips, falls

patters and throws itself recklessly

 

we may all fall down

but me, the machine woman

I get back up - sure, slowly

with

whirrs and clacks                                                                       whooshes and creaks

but I do, I do get back up.