Never means maybe, maybe means yes, and avoiding_the_subject means no. It butters our bread, and it milks all the cows and it hastens the cotton to grow. When we have abused it to fix all our problems, there's nothing we'll seek yet to know. Let's burn down the stables, and race with our tractors and toss out the seeds and the hoe! Never means maybe. Maybe means yes! and - avoiding the subject - means no. No fresh innovation has proven more noble, since the solfege of fee, fi and fo! When fighting a war, it's a giant advantage! You Britons shall ~ quake ~ head to toe. We'll lower the Union Jack from all your flagpoles, and hoist up the new Union Joe! Ne-ver means may-be... may-be means yes... and a-void-ing the sub-ject means no. When men of fine character decline to help, they permit no declension to show. That all expectation be nipped in the bud, they conceal every card that they hold — and hold for a promise each whispered intention, that ne'er may they waken controlled. "Never" means [maybe], "maybe" means [yes] and avoidingthesubject means [nay] ! You learned it from mom, then you taught it to me. Now I cipher each word that I say. So listen — ye fools — and remember this well: all our candor collapsed and withdrew... and "call me tomorrow" means [... if I'm not busy] ; "I can't" means [... at least not for you!]
Rafa, this reads like you kidnapped the English language, fed it moonshine, and dared it to confess its sins.
And honestly? It did.
The way you turn “never/maybe/yes/no” into a full-blown Cold War intelligence briefing — I nearly saluted my screen.
And that ending?
“‘I can’t’ means ‘…at least not for you.’”
Oh, that’s dangerous.
That’s fluently dangerous.
This isn’t a poem — it’s a translation guide for every American conversation we pretend is straightforward.
Unhinged. Accurate.
And I fear how much of it I recognized.
I loved the cadence of this. The last line KILLED.