to never underestimate the power of words

my life's too easy

to feel so listless

i'm always asking the page to tell me something new:

the next words,

the next step,

the next thing to believe

is that what i am, just empty-headed?

a monster of society's making, pinched into

shape by the people standing nearby to me?

glass towers never looked so empty,

even when they shimmer like crystal

take my words, spin them like silk into scarves

lay them at eye-level and tell me something

i don't know

bare my chest

my neck, my shoulders, my thighs

touch this skin

but you're incapable of seeing

what's just inside

i'm afraid of being seen but you

don't see it

you may force these words

from my lips or from the page

and still

they drop meaninglessly into your palms,

my lifeblood, my pain and love and sorrow -

my entire reality, in pieces, at your

fingertips and it all means nothing to you

you, who have not the keys to unlock them

you, who has not the courage to ask what it is

you, who has taken what i do not give

you, who still does not understand the power words hold

the power that i wield

and forget

for it and many other things have been used against me

and you are too blind

and i am too cowardly

and words rise and fall between us like the beating heart

dec 2 24