There is an elaborate web that lives between you and me. It’s a tangled weave, a sticky mess, deftly spun of suspicion, mistrust and paranoia. A stranger’s due harvest, no doubt. Yet it still catches my gentle words.

Stuck in its grip, the web spins them this way and that. It doesn’t stop, until my words are twisted, convoluted. Distorted, like an effects filter at an amusement park photo booth. Then it spits them back out. It is only then that my words find your ears. An empty carcass. Devoid of value. Devoid of breath. Devoid of life.

Then I stand called to account for things I never spoke, and to repair cuts I never sliced. Confused, I am left but to babble in defense. Even my incoherence jumps back at me, a fraction of what I meant. And then you curse me for the gentle words I tried to say.