In those short tags I see our secret language. The words that you so carelessly toss to the floor like pennies under the rug speak to me like loose-lipped, ship-sinking volumes and draw me in. They clue me to your canny, so speak on! Litter your thoughts and deeds with bread crumbs and toys, the strange, ill-fitting phrases removed with surgical precision and sewn in like a transplant to bring us closer. Send me hunting, send me reeling, give me that spark of the "ah-ha!" that I so crave and live for! Your jokes, my jokes, OUR JOKES that bind us like common experiences: a rare, common joy.
We can be as schoolchildren inventing ciphers that slip past the teacher, only able to take our notes, but never able to read them as our arbitrary substitutions serve only to confuse those outside of our circle and form, by exclusion, bonds between us so tight that we are one nation held by language without borders, a language of ages and words written by those who we wish to be. We ape their words and run with them as we at the same time bow to their might and giggle under our arms, laughing as we satirize homages. We could stand on the shoulders of giant turtles that loop downwards forever, be like Ouroboros and eat ourselves, but in each new cycle wring new meaning from old dogs and laugh all the while because we understand each other.
And if you feel ready, I will, with this thing, solomnly promise to always place function over form as long as I shall live and if you swear the same then let us crocodile fight, let us jab and leap in mock battles with dulled blades aimed just aside of our true vital points, stepping in with intent but feinting back in peals of laughter as we start in surprise at our own speed and then