It speaks to me

“It speaks to me” is a phrase Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen turn into a private joke while traveling together. First used to parody the language of artistic inspiration, it expands into a playful way to respond to whatever catches their attention. Its comic ease makes it a marker of their shared world, while later recurrences give the phrase emotional weight: the same words can signal intimacy to Poppy and leave her uncertain whether Alex remembers their history in the same way.

Origins as a Running Joke

The phrase takes shape after Poppy and Alex encounter a twenty-one-thousand-dollar bear sculpture. Although neither can afford it and the artwork does not appeal to them, they cannot bring themselves to tell the enthusiastic gallery attendant that it fails to speak to them. The language of being moved by art becomes material for their own game: for the rest of the day, they pick up things in shops and ask, “Does this speak to you?” Their finds include a signed Backstreet Boys album, a copy of What My G-Spot Is Telling You, and a pleather catsuit Poppy leads Alex into a fetish shop to embarrass him.

The joke works through improvised answers as much as through the repeated question. Alex imagines the album announcing “Bye-Bye-Bye”; Poppy tells him to make his G-spot speak up; and the bear’s price is folded back into the joke as an extravagant declaration of enthusiasm. Back at a black lacquered table, they continue by making spoons and napkins talk to one another. Their server joins the play, warning them to report back if the soy says anything saucy. The exchange turns an awkward encounter with expensive art into a shared comic routine, built from quick responses, escalating absurdity, and the pleasure of inventing together.

From Vacation Motto to Test of Recognition

The joke travels beyond the shops into the couple’s everyday decisions. When Poppy asks whether they should move to Canada, Alex turns the question back on her with “Does Canada speak to you?” Later, after a two-hour trip by bus and on foot to retrieve a car rented informally through Women Who Travel, Poppy claps at finding the keys beneath the back-seat floor mat, just as the owner had promised. Alex says the car is “really speaking to you”; Poppy replies that it is saying, “Don’t let Alex drive.” His exaggerated hurt and her dive into the driver’s seat keep the phrase alive as affectionate improvisation, not a serious judgment about art or travel.

On their week away, the expression becomes a shorthand for the life Poppy wants. Rain-soaked hikes, a damp motel room, repeated meals at the only two affordable restaurants, and a day spent quietly reading in a Chapters bookstore do not diminish her feeling that “This speaks to me.” In that moment the phrase names more than a pleasing object: Poppy feels anchored in the present, free from Linfield and the classes she dreads returning to, and imagines a life of seeing new places, meeting new people, and trying new things. Her question to Alex about whether they could always be doing this gives the private joke a more serious undertone: it has become a language for the possibility of a shared future.

The phrase also attaches itself to the small discoveries that define their trips. Seeing sea otters floating together, Poppy asks, “Can we take one home? They speak to me!” Alex joins her wonder, calling the sight adorable. But the joke remains specific to the two of them: after a night with Buck, Poppy nearly says that going inside “speaks to me,” then remembers that the reference belongs to her and Alex, not to everyone. Its private quality is part of its meaning; using it with someone else would not reproduce the same intimacy.

During their later reunion trip, Poppy tries the phrase again after Alex makes a positive remark about something they are considering. “It speaks to me,” she says, invoking their first trip together. Alex gives no sign that he recognizes the reference, and Poppy’s heart sinks. The moment makes the expression a test of shared memory: for her, the words carry the accumulated history of their private joke, while his silence leaves open the possibility that those seemingly momentous exchanges mattered less to him. Its meaning has shifted from spontaneous play to an uncertain measure of whether their past still belongs equally to both of them.

Private Language Against Silence

The expression’s later force is sharpened by how little language Poppy and Alex can manage when they first reconnect. Poppy hesitates over her phone, types and deletes a more vulnerable message, then abandons a casual invitation before finally sending only “Hey.” Alex replies with the same word. Poppy is startled enough to nearly answer as if he had initiated contact, then recognizes that he has not; the exchange leaves her without a natural opening. Against that stilted greeting, their old catchphrase represents a fluency they once shared: a compact, playful way to meet each other’s attention that cannot simply be summoned when their friendship is strained.

The gap between shared memory and present communication surfaces again when Poppy learns that Betty has died. She tells Alex, “Flannery O’Connor and Betty. I wish you’d told me.” He answers, “I wasn’t sure you wanted to hear from me.” The exchange makes their private language more than a record of amusing vacation moments: it belongs to a relationship whose intimacy has become difficult to trust or resume. The phrase can still carry the feeling of their earlier closeness, but it cannot resolve the uncertainty that has accumulated around it.

A Private Vocabulary That Cannot Speak for Them

The phrase’s later significance is clarified by the other pieces of shared knowledge that remain between Poppy and Alex. When Poppy accidentally opens his browser during their reunion trip, she asks for the computer password; Alex answers, “Flannery O’Connor.” She knows enough of his habits to enter it without asking about spaces, capitalization, or punctuation, confident that he is a purist. The password preserves an intimate familiarity of its own, even as their friendship is strained. Yet that surviving knowledge does not ensure that he will recognize her invocation of “It speaks to me.” The contrast makes the phrase’s missed reference more painful: private language can endure as a trace of closeness without guaranteeing that both people still understand it in the same way.

That gap between knowing one another and being able to speak freely persists beyond the reunion. When Poppy later appears where Alex is among other teachers, she has to make herself approach him; he looks up, and their exchange consists only of “Hi” and “Hi.” The scene does not repeat the catchphrase, but its bare greeting throws the old joke’s ease into relief. “It speaks to me” once let them turn objects, places, and passing discoveries into an ongoing conversation. Its later force lies partly in what it cannot do: it can recall the fluency they shared, but it cannot by itself bridge the silence that has grown between them.