“Storms come and go but fail to provoke like the tremor in my throat
When I will speak there is a thunder that could move worlds
My world
In a circle of light I want both
It’s lightness : seeing privacy privately
it’s darkness : formless in uniform shadow
In and out of sight
refracted and refracting
relational”

— Cai Glover

Je Parle

“Should I speak of desire?
belonging to all of us
as I to you
you to me
Is there room enough for my wants
have your walls left me too much space?
Would my walls, next to yours, allow for this?
Could you ever
be consciously
my walls”

— Cai Glover

“Je Parle” is an internalized discussion between an identified self that sits unmistakably outside the supported hilltops of an able majority and the voice that silences a plea for recognition and existence. Can your actions be congruent with your desires if you are situated in a formless space or perhaps more literally a society that fails to acknowledge your own borders and therefore the space you seek to inhabit?

In ‘Je Parle’, we uncover a dialogue, a duet, both wished for and feared which in itself amounts to the crux of the matter: in living through the development and identification of the self, a trusted self, we must feel as both the subject and the object of our lived experience; an authentic self is then both created by us and discovered by us simultaneously and can only do so in the throes of a relational entanglement, a partnered dance. The speaking hands are recognized by the gaze of another. To be me, I need you.

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