Mamihlapinatapai

Lyrics

The space between my coffee cup and yours. A continent. Just wide enough for a word to get lost. Your thumb traces the rim of the porcelain. Back and forth. The clock on the wall has stopped, I think. Or maybe we have. The steam from the drinks has finished its dance. And now there is only this. This quiet, this question mark hanging in the dust motes. I am reading the sentence in your eyes. And you are reading the same one in mine. This is mamihlapinatapai. The word for the door we both want to open. The word for the hands that will not reach for the key. A look that is a dare, a plea, a mirror. Hoping you will begin. Knowing you are hoping I will. A man named Thomas Bridges dipped his pen in ink. One hundred years ago, in Tierra del Fuego. He tried to pin it to the page. This silent, screaming thing between two people. He wrote it down for his dictionary. And I feel his ghost here, now. Watching us. Taking notes. How strange to have a name for this paralysis. This beautiful, terrible stillness. This is mamihlapinatapai. The word for the door we both want to open. The word for the hands that will not reach for the key. A look that is a dare, a plea, a mirror. Hoping you will begin. Knowing you are hoping I will. Cristina Calderón was the last one. The last tongue that knew its shape in the cold air. Did she feel it, too? This same current? An entire language dies, and this one word survives in a record book, in our quiet café. To find us. You and I. The last two speakers of a language made for one moment. The look holds. The coffee is cold. Who will break the surface? Who will be the first to speak? Or move?