Idioglossia

I am comfortable enough being an outlier I tell you
in my broken english, and I even laugh nervously,
just to reinforce how true it is. but I still can’t resist
placing fragments of pottery in places where you will find them:

underneath your pillow, in geometric patterns
on the back of your hands or neck. you may even wake
to a noise at your door one evening, and find two or three of them
depending from the knob, clinking together softly in the breeze—

even if you manage to ignore these, I will grind
a few pieces into the gravel of my speech, the rusty flecks
tinting it a suggestive shade of red, like a stained shirt.
one day it will be enough, and you will finally come

to my door, face flushed and angry, to ask me to stop;
to tell me it isn’t funny anymore and I will laugh,
too tired by now to hide my unhappiness, and tell you that you
must not have understood, exactly, what I meant by I am comfortable
enough