searching for meaning.

Eyes gulp words like water. Dehydrated and seeking sustenance from the simple syllables. Consonants and vowels slosh down the gullet. Settling in the taut stomach of comprehension. There they digest and absorb into the bloodstream, becoming more and more like ritual.

Belief made real through osmosis.

Consecration not merely through ingestion, but through a more purposeful process.

The membranes are permeable. The content is malleable.

What will stay and what will go.

Exegesis.

Findings excreted or deep-seated.

What will find residence in the pedagogical manifestation that is a belly full of letters.

These letters that make meaning in my mind.

Phonemes. Graphemes. Morphemes.

Semantics. Pragmatics.

Where do your words come from?

Why do you know them and how do you use them?

English is an art and we're all little painters. Wobbling with our brushes as we attempt to splatter meaning on the canvas of another.

What we meant is not what we said and what we heard is not what they meant. What we read was supposed to make sense but didn't and what we wrote said something different than what we thought.

Misconception haunts my every dream. Who am I to claim mastery of this art called English.

I swirl my alphabet soup with gusto as I wiggle words out of my mouth.
These words are everything and yet, they are nothing.
We breathe power and life into them with our convoluted intentions.
Your meaning is not always my meaning.
So how may we ever understand?

Language is akin to religion.
Genuflect and extol the SAT conglomerate of wicked words in the bank.
Neener neener.
You think you know, but you have no idea.
These tests gauge your knowledge.
Stack you up amongst the many.
You are just a benchmark where standards sit to rest.
High ho the dairy-o. The teacher and the pen.

Your six year old brain will jump through hoops, serving standards you know nothing about,
 all the while searching for the water of meaning.
Your mouth runs dry as you sound out words that get stuck in your throat.

Drink up little one.

I am the teacher.

I promise I know what's best.

All the while I stack you up.

Up amongst the rest.