Hypozeuxis (hyp-o-zook’-sis): Opposite of zeugma. Every clause has its own verb.
“I am a travellin’ man. I am a movin’ groover. I have a crankin’ motor for a soul.” This is what I said when I introduced myself. It usually scared people away. I was just being honest.
I was high-test hyperactive. I took medication, but I couldn’t sit still. I talked too fast. I fidgeted. Foot-tapping was my specialty. I played the guitar at social events and it would often conceal my hyperactivity, especially if I played the blues which demand foot-tapping. I hid out in “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and “Boom, Boom, Boom” Both afforded heavy and deeply hard foot-tapping. I even wrote a blues song:
I put the gravy on my bread,
And then I went to bed.
I thought about you.
And I wished I was dead.
Ow, ow, ow!
I’m goin’ to sleep.
Ow, ow, ow!
You’re a creep.
I’m not gonna’ weep.
I’m goin’ to sleep.
Ow, ow, ow!
I wrote this after my girlfriend left me and I had the blues. She said I was too twitchy and had a hard time looking at me because it made her nervous and afraid. She was afraid that my twitch would cause me to accidentally punch her, so she couldn’t get close to me. We never hugged. We never kissed. We never . . . Just guess.
But now I met a new girl. Her name is Wiggle. We’re both hyperactive. When we get together it’s like two full speed egg beaters making meringue. It is the best connection I’ve ever made with another human being. We know what makes each other “tic.” Ha, ha—too funny.
We went for a moonlight walk that turned out to be two days long. We had so much energy we walked until we were exhausted. We laid by the side of the road bicycle pumping our legs in the air. We told the man who picked us up that we wanted to go to a motel. He agreed. When we got to the “Night Fever Motel” he checked the three of us into one room. We were alarmed when he started to take off his pants. We told him we weren’t that kind of people. He took off his pants anyway and ran out the door. We hauled-ass out of the room and noticed his car was parked there with the keys in it. We stole his car and drove to a shopping mall and left it in the parking lot. My driving was terrible—I couldn’t drive in a straight line and I kept stomping and letting up on the gas pedal—we were getting whiplash.
We called an Uber (which is what we should’ve done in the first place) and it drove us to our doors. I miss Wiggle, but I think we should stay away from each other for a little while.
Ow, ow, ow!
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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