Paraprosdokian
A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence, phrase, or larger discourse is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, often anticlimactic.
You love an anticlimax and I’m growing fond of them too. Never goodbye, only see you soon.
I learn this as I research the life of gone too soon comedian Mitch Hedberg, your favorite. At first I didn’t like him, but then I liked how hard he made you laugh, and then I liked him too as I liked myself more and more, Mitch and I both of us harmless and reckless, defying gravity as we fall while still trying to lift others.
Never having to acknowledge that everything is changing, but nodding at it as it passes like the ice cream truck in February, like wait what happened? It wasn’t a happening. It was a progression entirely out of our hands, and on the best days we are reaping the benefits. Most days we are learning to live with it, like bugs in a warming climate. It can’t be us vs. them anymore. It has to be live and let live, until we feel outnumbered, overcome. With some semblance of equilibrium, everything can be alright.
When I walk home from your house, I see something completely new every time even though it’s a walk I’ve been taking since long before I knew you, before you lived in the city. Straight up Broadway in all of its function and chaos.
The pirate flag flying at the corner of Hart and Broadway couldn’t scare me less as I think about how much I used to want to be a pirate. It is a homecoming into the Jim Hawkins that has always taken up residence inside me. The girliest boy, ready for adventure. My life a musical, but with lots of swords and a vast, open sea.
The reframing arrives as there has never been a better time to try to figure out how to express ourselves. Our brains and bodies hot from the work of it all. The silence sets in, shiny like the red lights on the gel manicures I don’t get. Working hands on lovely ladies make them even prettier and I think you would agree. I’d like to be a lovely lady just about once a week, without the chemical stain.
What we talk about always surprises me. Even when you do all of the talking, I am surprised for once in my life that it is not me. Easy in our habitat, your room a terrarium with the light bouncing in and good fortune reaching down to pat our fuzzy heads as we huddle together like hamsters.
I can live out of a striped bag like a sailor and sing you sea shanties and continue to reinvent the absence of expectations that make things so easy.
