Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash
It’s amazing, the power in a
word
sticks and stones break my bones,
words will only kill me
single phrases, barbed poison
or the absence of them: silent death
where no one hears your soul shriek
If I could give you special vision,
all painted in the aftermath of sentences,
you could see all these things you’ve said to me
and see each way they’ve hurt or healed
Looking at the tender half-healed scars,
you’d weep, apologetic–
but not enough
never quite enough
But even so, I’ll take these words of yours,
fold them up gently
(they have made me who I am)
and I will create with them
little paper birds and flowers,
something beautiful, soothing
And then I’ll give them back to you,
these words,
all folded up in pretty Japanese shapes
(my heart, my soul, my fears as one)
I have one word for you:
forgiven
NOTE: I wrote this in high school, and even though it’s a bit too on-the-nose, it struck me as being particularly appropriate for what I’ve been through in the past 2.5 years. So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about that situation directly, but the wound must be drained in order to heal. I will write about it soon… but not today. Today, the pain is still too near.