telling stories II: only tell your stories to strangers

Be careful what you turn into words,
and who you give those words to.
You never know what they might do to it –
how they’ll scuff or chip or stain it,
so that it’s never quite bright and clean,
never quite perfect, again.

Be careful who you think of
as you roll a memory up into a story –
their trace will be tangled into your words,
a fine thread that puckers the cloth
if you try to pull it out.

So be careful what you turn into words
and who you give those words to.

It is safest to tell your stories to strangers.