Silence, where the echoes of our voices fade in and out, where we drink our experiences like a plant starved of light. Fighting and loving and fearing in a moment, hugging our thoughts to us as if holding them will somehow bring them to life. 

The world spins so fast that I have to close my eyes to keep from getting dizzy; the voices are so loud that I fear I’m going deaf. 

The dripping of water is like a clock ticking down the seconds, and suddenly, I have fifty years, ten years, four years, hours, seconds, and everything in between to go forward, forward, forward, no matter what my head is screaming to me. The silence of a thought can be louder than thunder.

I’m fighting a war of blood with myself while staring at a sky that’s forever changing; I want so badly to live in a fantasy that falling, falling back to reality feels like a betrayal to myself and the world that I’ve left behind. When I finally meet the ground, falling seems better than that terrible stop at the bottom, but all I can do is stare up, wondering when or if I’ll finally be able to go back to where the world is slow enough, and where I’m simply there to be. 

Words. Black and white, spoken, thought, I couldn’t live without words. 

So much feeling can come from a single word. Love, hate, all of it, can explode out from a few letters. They make us what we are. 

Humans could not exist without the construction of language, for that is what makes up our souls, our hearts and our minds. 

Listening to what someone else has to say can change what I believe, all in moments before I even begin to realize how I’ve been altered.

Hellos and goodbyes, all seared into our hearts with iron, watching every day pass with a weathered face, dreading the storm that hits again. Another scar. 

I will heal through words.

Moments where all I want is to sink underneath the Earth and grow roots below a stone bearing my name, I encounter beautiful words. 

They bring salvation; 

They bring demise. 

Lies, exposed, the layers of flesh taken down to the bone of truth; some rejoice and some mourn. 

When you cannot speak, you must write, for the words you say are more precious than anything you possess.

In them, you are cemented;

In them, you are condemned; 

And in them, you are saved.