THE WORDS

I will not hide behind the words

I can’t fit inside their walls and ceilings

There isn’t space for me there

I am an ocean too big, too deep, and too complex

Contorting myself to squeeze between commas and question marks is an outrageous endeavor

Words never do know how to hold me fully

Their efforts consistently fall short

These servants of my mind

Doing my bidding willfully

But always showing up too tired and overused

The words said or written

Full of feeling but not weighed down by it as am I

They attempt to carry ideas from within

To lift them away from the place they were born

So that others may know the hidden stories of my soul

But words are not weight lifters

And these thoughts are heavy

Words grow weary of the task

Like cardboard boxes trying to transport water

Upon arrival holding only fragments of what they were asked to carry

A partial glimpse into what can only be held by its creator

Expression fails for words can only say so much

The structures of languages demanding sense be made of unsensible things

Consonants and vowels volunteering their service,

Trained in sounds and not soul

Unqualified but still eager to go to battle and die unrewarded

What can be said of words

That words themselves would dare to say?

To fully state their uselessness the words must become cannibles

Be both hero and villain simultaneously

But they lack the power to defend or destroy

Not out of loyalty or instinct

Words do not feel

They do not desire or hate

They are merely scratches on a page

Words cannot be what we ask of them

Like toothpick legs attempting to hold up the Empire State Building

They tremble with the burden of the mission they’ve been charged

Words cannot serve what is stirring

Words cannot contain what is boiling over

For as the words dip into the emotion and turn to share a taste

The lot of it drips away

From thick lava boiling within to an unseeing , unknowing world without

A thin spread of words across pages or lips never do satisfy the craving to be heard