Words
is there anything quite as beautiful as words?
loud words that come from small bodies,
kind words that come from tired souls
isn’t beautiful how words paint their own pictures
words that are spoken fleetingly in the halls,
quick messages that can’t wait until lunch
words that are yelled when the music is too loud,
half heard sentences punctuated with bass beats
the polite first words that relax bit by bit each conversation,
like strangers on their first date to lovers on their hundredth,
our words change as we do
words that are stuttered,
words that are whispered
words that are said once but linger long after
the habitual likes and ums and ohs
our nature to fill pauses,
the okays and thank yous and sorries
our constant need for pronouncement
words that vary from brooklyn to bronx
some better fit in brownstone
some better fit in brickhouse
the personalized cadence in which we speak,
cigarette rasps or silk sighs
it is never mistaken that
my words are mine and yours are yours
those words that sound like song
where you wish you could
put them on a record and let them play on repeat
i bet i’d have playlists of every joke, praise and promise
the ones said in slurs
pouring out of drunken lips like liquor
brazen confessions followed by sober sorries
who knows which is the truth
and oh those words,
the ones that are shaped differently on the tongue of my ita ma, or mahi, or courha
whose english are dipped in the tea of their home land,
their vowels sweet and stained
yes there are words that are written so dark on the page
no amount of erasing can make them go away
but what would we do without these words
that fill the gaps our bodies can’t
i like to think my life is a lexicon made up of these words
that somewhere between my first and last
there are nouns of all the people, places, and things
i’ve encountered
the adjectives i have for them, verbs i did with them
i guess this is all to say that if later
i’m asked for the definition of what my life was
i’ll have quite the dictionary in the palm of my hands