Alex Skousen

Alex Skousen is a writer based in New York.

Babel/Derrida

A word is just a word until it’s worn
weary, wrangled into uses it would
never call its own could it ever call.
Whipped through the years until the years become

eons, until it’s brittle with history
and worn like a cross or a sweater or
a cone by its pilgrims, practitioners,
and detractors; its weight, waxed unwieldy,

now whisking up a froth, the froth warping
the weight, the weight waning, now wanting
some ethereal je ne sais quoi, the word

becoming a thousand dreams and questions;
becoming a thousand babbling
nothings; becoming what it’s becoming.