A word, Kacper

You spent hours awake and then you found the answer. You found the Word you were looking for. It hadn’t been defined yet, and so you didn’t know what you were looking for back then and there. You tell yourself that you can’t be blamed for being lost when it never existed in the first place.

But here It is, on your tongue, after moving left then right and front and back and trying to find just the right position. There was none, and you know that, and know you know this too: this Word is yours and yours alone.

It is your creation, and so you can share it if you want. You’re not sure if you do. Too often you find the beautiful words are misused, tainted by overuse or underuse. Love is a perfect example, and you were guilty of it once too. You’ve tried to rub out of the ink in your flesh, the skin-deep dictionary of emotion defining you for years, but it has only since smudged.

You spent much of the night tripping the tip of your tongue with twisters and tautologies and tangents, but nothing worked as you expected in the beginning. Everything felt flat, almost stolen; it didn’t belong to you but to others. They defined the words. You just used them. You were a borrower from the bank of humanity, and after a withdrawal, you felt cheap and unoriginal.

But not today. Not tonight. This is your night. The moon rose for you and it will set for you all the same, but in between then and now, you will use the Word.

When, you’re not exactly sure, but that doesn’t matter yet. All that does is you have it, you’ve found it, and after it all, you won’t lose it.

And yet.

It doesn’t seem as fresh in your mind as it was in the heat of conception. Night has dulled its freshness and vigor. Like everything else around you, it seems to have faded behind the limelight of the moon.

You get out of bed with the shadow of your sweat clawing for you to come back. It sits there and waits. It knows you’ll come back eventually. You always do.

You don’t remember it being this hot in your room ever. You hear the air-conditioning firing off, but you are sure it’s just recycling hot air. Your feet slip on the hardwood floor and you want to laugh to yourself that it feels like ice-skating in the middle of Hell.

You arrive at your desk, though it can hardly be called that. It doesn’t belong to you. It was here before you were. It was built by your parents. They bought it off of others. Who bought the material off others. And so on. It makes you confused and somewhat sad that everything in your life can be reduced so it is no longer your life. You feel like you owe everyone for being here, for simply inhaling and exhaling.

Yet here you are still, still breathing, with what feels like the first creative thought in generations.

This is you. All of you. And you finally understand what that means.

“Grab a pen,” you tell yourself, and you do.

“Grab a paper,” you add, and you do it again.

They feel heavy in your hand, and your perspiration makes both difficult to hold. You’re shaking too. You are excited.

And so you start with the first original thought since the first dictionary was created.

Kacper /’kaspur’/

n.

1. A Polish name that connotes a “treasure bearer.” Example: Kacper isn’t worth his weight in gold, unlike his name suggests.

2. A cluster of matter which has organized into a living human on Earth for a few years. Example: Kacper, did you just pee your pants again?

3. A sardonic person who reserves most his thoughts for the night. Example: Why is Kacper writing this with the glint of the moon?

4. A composition of conflicting personalities and experiences that make up a being born in March in the 90s. Example: Can you stop being so hypocritical, Kacper?

5. The sound a fart makes if one squeezes their bumcheeks together. Example: Did you just Kacper yourself?

6. A common misnomer for a popular franchise that will far outlast the being Kacper aforementioned. Example: My name is Kacper, not Casper.

7. A whisper on a lover’s lips. Example: Kacper …

8. An impassioned anger and consequent shout. Example: Kacper – what the fuck are you doing?

9. A math equation. Example: So, Kacper, there are two of you then, right?

10. An old man eventually. Example: Damn it, Kacper, how did you get so old when you were young just a second ago.

11. A…

You fall asleep before you finish it all. You wake up and see number eleven and can’t remember what you wanted to write. You feel tired again. You go back to sleep there on your desk, with the black ink of Kacper slowly tattooing itself to your forehead. The sun is rising.