https://priyankavoruganti.com priyanka voruganti Sun, 07 Mar 2021 08:29:39 +0000 https://priyankavoruganti.com en https://priyankavoruganti.com/cover Mon, 28 Dec 2020 23:57:41 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/cover <img width="15577" height="12702" width_o="15577" height_o="12702" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4d7db7023342aea3ed627d1709c5a057c5b9b707b10578d954fe2c2c66c384b4/empty_transparent_png.png" data-mid="93306613" border="0" data-scale="100" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/4d7db7023342aea3ed627d1709c5a057c5b9b707b10578d954fe2c2c66c384b4/empty_transparent_png.png" /> https://priyankavoruganti.com/contents Sun, 07 Mar 2021 08:29:39 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/contents POEMS: living in parentheses a letter to the queen doomsday&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;the potter &nbsp;mindfulness&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; rage song after-dinner hours&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;my devotions&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;drew barrymore and a near death experience&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; contorting, compressing, etc.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;seetha’s story&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;confession&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; explanation the corner&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;to syncopate&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; if we were kidnapped together&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;the comet&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;i’m herVOMITAGE&nbsp; &nbsp;basement, 2007 https://priyankavoruganti.com/mindfulness Sun, 20 Dec 2020 07:34:04 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/mindfulness Mindfulness Stationed there at midnight, far-flung toward end-time. I can hear it breathe. Seam of my jeans, pulsing left side of the mattress, metronome’d to my heaving—steady, reliable, there. What I know: the American Robins perched at bedside, night chill puts me to sleep, fox racing alongside car. What serenity is gathered in perching, and I’ve never been able to spend quite so much time on it. Lucent mornings shift gears. I’m really only prepared for the rain, the drizzling of it all; I do not anticipate clarity. I’m bound to the same white comforter for months.&nbsp; It’s ironically white. I can give you five different stories for each blood stain. I’ll eat in the spur of the moment. Let me Grecian coast this downpour. Sometimes, rainwater can be wine. It’s a matter of mind over matter. If you believe it, it most definitely won't be. I’m afraid that my nail polish will run out. It’s a bottle of black, and I apply a coat every day. And then smudge. It’s all about the painting and the smudging, about how flatthe set-up is. No, I don’t want to buy press-ons at the store. No, I don’t want a day where there isn’t even a bit of black chip left on the sheets. I want anticipated clarity and forthcoming stock&nbsp; market boosts but I’m really not trying to ask for much. Give meblack nails, give me them at midnight. I’ll bear them to the blackness as witness of cruelty, spectator to atrocity, and then maybe you’ll all understand what I’ve been through. https://priyankavoruganti.com/doomsday Wed, 17 Feb 2021 06:33:32 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/doomsday Doomsday Two times this year it had been her. Shift- shattered all the known embers on Earth. She had plucked each individual rosary bead from its stem, placed them in acetone for renewal. It was terribly exhausting work, the upkeep of it all. She was the person who donned high priestess gear and went cajoling on Hollywood Boulevard. In the grainy late-night ads, the ones paid for by small or dying companies, the ones with lawyers advertising hair gel and orange veneer, there were prayers said. She knew the mysticism of the every-day, traced the Latin in seagull screams. Now, a quietude settled upon the city, and no one seemed to be interested in the pamphlets she had to offer. When nothing was happening was when something was wrong. The physics of it all seamlessly organized within the arena of her brain during the pitch black night, when medieval orders could be elucidated through the paint thinning of the walls, or astronomical end-dates were deduced within the shut-eye of her leaky faucet. She liked when things finally made sense, in this way. When outside was scary, unknowable, nonsensical, and doused with a kind of realism so precise, cartoon-ish, even: that was when dark became safe. It was in the dark where she could coax chaos, something knowable, the shadows on the ceiling undulating with such familiarity, utterly rational, and completely hers. It was here that she embraced and knew who she was, knew that she was destined, chosen, even, for something very important. https://priyankavoruganti.com/the-potter Wed, 17 Feb 2021 06:32:22 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/the-potter The Potter Ever since technology had come to their town, the ceramic purpose of her life had undergone some undoing. Syv still made pots, but barely. There was this app where you could scale a bowl to your liking, liken it to a piece you might have seen in Syv’s shop. Color it with preference, and then order it via the app. And it came in a week. Everyone could be a potter, suddenly, and pots and bowls and vases were now made with swipes and a certain kind of refined pinching of the thumb and index finger. Syv contemplated the value of finger versus hand dexterity. It was a more complicated issue than just that, obviously, as working the wheel concerned more than just the hands—it was the hands, fingers, the toes barely pressing on pedal, the arms in a very specific hug, perhaps the most intentional hug that could ever be given, Syv contended. It was the time of day that a bowl asked to be made. It was the clay demanding to be shaped while the light pursed in through the clouds, but barely. It was the fact that Matt had broken Syv’s heart when she was twenty and in Portugal, so she had dropped her phone in the most intentional way possible onto the concrete of the sidewalk. It was that a potter was nearby, taking a smoke break and watching Syv break her phone with intentionality. It was that Syv had no way of getting back to her hotel so the potter generously offered to call a cab with his phone, his phone back at the studio. It was that pushing the clay around on the spinning disk felt purposeful and extremely important, like the most important task in the world. It was that Syv had never known anything else but brokenness. She always started a bowl this way: in concert with the clay, a left hand steady, in position, ready for anything, and the right one taking a leap into darkness, pushing forward, upward, with upmost certainty, pushing and breaking the seal. It was the moment of surprise when something, anything, was miraculously made. https://priyankavoruganti.com/rage-song Sun, 20 Dec 2020 07:50:07 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/rage-song Rage Song Word-laced scepter skelter, and fine figs for dinner. Listen,&nbsp; there is a lot of joy in the little things, in the ho-hum-dum-dum-damn bugs picking licks, finding spots, scram-damn-dum-dummybugs all crevice-bound, bloodthirsty, blood fiends of dark. The allure ends here, it’s the punch-line and the general underwhelming reveal, because Yes, it doesn’t last forever, and yes, I do end here in flames. Let me be the piotious, prettypamplemousse pink-gummed gallbladder of your choosing, let me rest here, stick-bound, bound to a stick, primed and pretty, scepter of red and oozing ooze. I’m the Cannibal Holocauststick-fucked faerie gnashing on wood, wood stick peeking up from my esophagus like God. Look. God compounded make man after man of loss. It’s like that one time when I didn’t choose to set my own hair on fire, flames finger-licking, scouring for the last square centimeter of dead skin, skull-climbing, using strand as ladder, inching towards home base. Then I was off puking mucus, a bile-ridden carpet, sulfur scent spinning me off into delirium, dum-dum-dummy bugs rising up to the surface to lick the ash. Now stick-bound, endowed with the great gift of great prophecy, all-knowing, all cure-having, all bliss-containing, cheerful nuclear wife ready to show the othershow it’s done. Enjoy. Ready for the fanfare, for the fans touching feet then hands to forehead, venerative cucks slowly on their way to earning their very own molten wives. Listen, it’s either stick-bound or aesthetic for life, but I’m thirteen and you’re fifteen and she’s sixteen and there isn’t much substance in the whole thing if we can’t be our true, vapid selves. I’m starting to believe that the new wave of romance is just prolonged rejection, tape-looped ‘till the end of days, being powerless to the projected omnipotence of limp dick. It’s sputter-me-upsplutter lemon drop coughs into his cheap TJ Maxx suit (bad joke recoil), it’s being ketamine’d at the hotel bar (quick slip), it’s Kraus-ing a guy until you get a restraining order, shivering at the curve of his d’s, his p’s, his o’s, your name written there in lovely, distracted man-scrawl (swoon). It’s knowing that it’s all going to end. It’s counting losses like coins. It’s being more woman the richer you are. It’s accumulatory loss-accumulation,it’s acclimating to the acrid acid of burning flesh. I met mostof the men online.&nbsp; I burned a piece of me in their wake. At their wake, I burned beside casket. Before you wake, I’ll burn the evidence. Me. I believe Notley when she rewrites mythos with She-God’s “lightbulbs and liquefaction.” It’s a matter of believing, then, in either self-imposed or statutory masochism. State-mandated pyres blazed the&nbsp; lands, bright with liquefaction, searing the eyes of watch-bound teenagers, clung and thick-lipped, clipped news articles of the most recent fire—just a few years ago, yet now as something illegal, something committed on one’s ownaccord. Says the news, anyways. Ketamine’d at the hotel bar says otherwise, I’d argue. It’s being poised and primed and pampered, sitting pretty, pyre-bound, bound to binds by ballooned hands, camera in focus and white men disseminating the evidence. Me. There are different depictions. You pick your favorite. There’sthe sexed-up voluptuous female crouched over dead husband, welcoming, evoking the flames. Then there’s Sati as colonial justification, widow white-wearing and dark-skinned, tears like gas, egging on the fire. What’s the difference between martyrdom and martyrdom? The flame-laced, rope-tied womanwas bound in every corner, bound to be in every corner. Across every ocean. All the time. Everywhere. There’s something about the spectacle of loss. Give me woman crying, breaking down, head on ground, heaving, she must be heaving (adjust her posture to look more heave-like), heaving, yes, heaving. Give me woman on a stick, give me indigenous woman blood-laced, luster-struck boobs embalmed in grime, then put it on a stick. I want a fun, fresh, funky Drew Barrymore-type cut into pieces. I want a sexy, sultry, contemporary Black Dahlia. It’s all about the smile. If it’s not there, carve it on. I want a day where I don’t dream of setting myself on fire. Then I question if it’s something genetic. Am I inherently barbaric, is lusting over inferno something integral to who I am? I like the idea of everything going away slowly. Of you watching. Eyes aflame. This is a general “you.” This is for the fanfare in the back, for that guy at the bar that didn’t text back, for the boy that I dated who actually died. Give me self-flagellating toppling bodies stick-fucked, fisted balls, balled fists and iffy-type sideways women heaving and heaved up to the stick with heathens watching chewing bubblegum not mourning not crying and not even heaving. And in my final act, I stand stick-fisted, stuck on a stick engulfed in gestures of homage—a rose here, a splash of gas intermittently, word-laced scepter skelter hour upon us. Readyfor round two. More gas, more infrequent now, more infrequent are the fans, the fanfare dwindled, fans now morose and sweaty and bored in my company, retreating. I forgot my lines. It is hard to conjure up air here. Breathing has never felt so much like heaving. I feel blisters pop and bristle like juiced-up spikes of electricity, and I feel nothing. I know what will be said tomorrow, that I was humpty-dumpty strong, or perhaps was squirming on the stick too shamelessly, was Notley- worshipping, was waiting for She-God to end the shebang. It didn’t end. I burned and I died. But not before I slut-shamed the bubblegum girls, pity-pissed the stragglers who walked by without a glance, flipped-off the magistrates who&nbsp; organized the event, shat-sat the uniformed Brits pretending to close their eyes, lip-kissed the baby boys, praying for infanticide, tummy- tucked the pregnant women, their screams furthering the fire, undercut the gamblers, playing to win on my demise, and wind-whipped the ashes, forming contrails out of self. https://priyankavoruganti.com/drew-barrymore Sun, 20 Dec 2020 07:57:15 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/drew-barrymore Drew Barrymore and a Near Death Experience Ensembled on a NDE thread and in perfect formation, laced with everything all at once vile and beauteous, and also, yes, you packed snacks, and you have a kind of face akin to Harrison Ford or Julia Roberts or Drew Barrymore, and also, yes, you’re famous, you’re wealthy in terms of friends or how many times you’re name-dropped, and maybe you livein a shack or a small hut by a black sand beach, but if so, you have a disease-ridden seagull that bring messages from your fans all around the world, little scraps of paper covered in scrawled script, little declarations of obsession, vials of spit from New York and San Francisco and Milan and Tokyo encased in your seagull’s gull dropped down to the base of your hut, and every morning at your black sand beach, the tide makes a point of creeping forward to alarm you of the day beginning, of the seagull arriving, of the NDE thread impending, and you lace your shoes and paint your face like Harrison Ford or Julia Roberts or Drew Barrymore would, and you pack snacks, and you bid adieu to the coast, and you walk miles, and you pick things up along the way, and you don’t stop until you reach me and the NDE thread, and I scream your name, and I say Drew, Drew, Drew. Then we embrace. https://priyankavoruganti.com/Contorting-Compressing-Etc Sun, 20 Dec 2020 08:00:03 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/Contorting-Compressing-Etc Contorting, Compressing, Etc. It’s like that moment in Get Out where once sunken, the guy sinks deeper. I used to marvel at those Japanese soda bottles with pearly glassballs, the balls you pop down with the soft of your thumb. Lower going lower, essentially. I am not sure if this is a medical problem or a uteral one, the caving in on myself. Chest cavitycontorted, compressed to create space outward. It’s about taking up space. Dad used to find me hiding in the oddest places, the bottom of the laundry shoot (on days where clean clothes lined our closets), the shed by the pool (barren for years, unused, dirty), Mom’s bedroom. Mom was gone by then. (That room was a void.) I felt in these spaces a kind of blending in with the landscape, a taking up of minimal space, negative space, compressing, contorting my body to fit inside the belly of the grand piano, willing my parts to go numb, these legs are tuning pins arms brass strings ankles and such. Still. Then, in the late morning, someone would come sit on the warm leathered seat, twiddle their hands over the shiny white keys, Grandma or Brother or someone. An eruption of vibration ensued, and I felt everything inside of me buzz. I laughed, filled my entire body with air, seperated from piano, stepping out of belly, emerging. It was always a shock to remember how tall I was, what the ground felt like, that I was something 3D. I felt it so sharply while watching the piano play itself. I felt everything then, there, standing there. I felt everything and realizedthat the piano felt nothing, that you don’t ache. https://priyankavoruganti.com/The-Corner Sun, 20 Dec 2020 08:08:38 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/The-Corner The Corner When we build a corner with our eyes, the light dims near the meeting point of the walls. The shadows reiterate the meaning there. What is it to only exist when darkened. What is itto assert one’s existence in the provingof another. Shadows are void of light, and yet in those crevices, worlds are built. There is depthand a clarity to what is being asserted. When I livedin New York, I played a game. I’d cruise down 5th in a taxi and find the most compact spaces for human fitting. I’d imaginemy body folded in a trash can, knotted inside a fruit stand, numbin a bodega window. It was all about figuring out the proportionsto perfectly transfigure myself into a pothole. It was all aboutthe magic of the disappearing act, the lucency of being onewith something mediocre. Why I’d love to be something dormant on the street, something stray and something controlledby the whim of the wind. Like a plastic bag, like a blow-up doll, mypale tits streaking red through traffic, my plastic arms flailing a cab down,my incoherent body muddled in the foreground. I want to be the reason for the trash can, the reasonable explanation for the debris, the assertion of the news stand. Let me layand assert, let me be for another. Let me shine through the ignoramus somethingand through it, I’ll be something, some trash or stand or corner, anythingwill work. I’ll be small and quiet.All will dim around me. https://priyankavoruganti.com/The-Comet Sun, 20 Dec 2020 08:15:46 +0000 priyanka voruganti https://priyankavoruganti.com/The-Comet The Comet I’m full of much ordinary-ness, and while the sometimes spectacularshape of my limbs or my words do have the power to besot, to consume one’s mind, I did see a comet today and all it was was some blurry lightness, and that’s regular. Blurry lightness is all around, shrouded by blurry darkness, among all blurry otherness. I’ve been meaning to learn the names of constellations, as if putting language to the universal would further the spectacle, bring poetry to things, make stars more human than they are. More sky-struck, as we call it. As if language hasn’t distorted meaning enough, already. As if distorting, it could save. As&nbsp;naming the uniqueness doesn’t just reduce it to one of the many things named, out there with the syllables, the same turn of mouth of or-din-ar-y. A very human construction.