You Are … I Am

You are.
I Am?
Alien.
Lean in. Hear me speak. See. I sound like you. I roll my rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrs like you. I know all the lyrics to <em>I like Aeroplane Jelly</em>. Do you? I got an A+ in English, and you?

You are.
I am?
Fictional.
I am flesh and blood. I do not protect your phone case. I am not an embroidered patch sewn on a cotton purse for sale on the counter of a souvenir shop, smiling on your sleeve, trying to win your heart in brown and blue. My face is not painted on a mug. I do not bend and stretch behind your square screenset-turned-flat. I do not wait for the hundreds and thousands of pixels to disappear like gobbled-down fairy bread. I am not a fairy. I am not an extra-terrestrial.

You are.
I am—Stop.
I am my own dictionary.
A rebel with sharp, pointy teeth. I will not let you define me. I will not let you draw a map with key indicating me, toddling on a tightrope separating here and out there. I will sing the songs that were sung to me. Warm in my mother’s womb, but also the songs of the land that adopted me. You will not drop me in your orchestra’s pit and point your sticks at me. I will play brass, string, and the piccolo. My voice is sweet and loud enough among the so-defined big and mighty.

You Are … I Am

I am many. I am here and there. OK? Va Bene?
You are.
I am.
We are or can be—one.