when i don't know what to say i'm apt to say something meaningless, or repeat some banality, when i should be silent and just look around me. there's a lot of blather in the air. sometimes i think about all the voices flying around from device to device, and the birds listening to the noises we make, wondering what in the world we could be going on about. i used to hide from people when i was lost for words—all the time. i couldn't relate to people. i still feel that way, but i'm not as mortified as i used to be. i feel like i do have something to say, even if i don't know how to say it. i always felt like something wasn't right with us, as humans, and i wondered why everyone was pretending the same thing. people must get so awful tired of pretending. i know, it's how we're brought up, i've pretended too. it's so unreal. it's exhausting. it's a fancy thought i have, that we're going to wake up soon and as a loose gathering of people say—enough pretending.