The Weight of Words

As the night air shows the vapor in my breath I contemplate the weight of words. How light some of them are in certain hands and how heavy they can be on some hearts. How meaningless a simple word can be to someone, and how one rightly timed word can mean the world to another. Utterances convey thoughts, the birth of ideas, impregnated with emotions. The calloused words people defend with. The trembling words people profess.

As I sip chai tea I think of the culmination of words yet to be expressed, like an undiagnosed condition. All of the "I want you-s" or the "I'm sorry-s". Beyond the subtext there are words that float as leaves among the wind, hanging in the air. All of those "can we-s" and "would you like to-s" gathering in the corners of the streets and trampled along sidewalks.

I think of the price of promises, uttered in haste, in vanity and poise. There is a look a person gets when they realize that they are not who they thought they were. I'v come to believe the best way to tell someone you care for them is to care for them. That is the best "I love you-s", having been spoken boldly with conviction and truth. Showing up is poetry. To be there is a velvet voiced song.

"Deed, not words shall speak me" - John Fletcher

The War of Worlds

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Tension builds within. The tensions mount without. In my innermost desire I yearn for the American dream. A simple house that is enough, and a lot of land that separates the peace within and the chaos without. I can see my dream washed in golden light, scintillating and bathed in radiance. I can see the red blood contrasted the pure white, from the sucking stab wound of governance. My desire for solitary peace unmolested by bureaucratic dominance has been held captive by the all consuming predatory machine. The freedom I long for within, is at odds with the monster without. I can feel the air fill my lungs within. I can feel the anger over my skin without. The sleepless nights, and the sleepless days, spent building the empires of another. The line between indentured service and slavery indicates that there is somewhere someone can go.

My dreams seem so distant and fanciful though I know in the deepest parts of my heart that they're footed in plausibility. Like a fable involving some talking mouse inspired to teach some parable, the elements are real, but it still feels like slavery. I speak to God on the issue of my oppression. My cage is adorned with decadence, like a canary held near the window watching the other birds fly. I watch as the others rise up to play and like Ballam, I envy them in a sense. The soul within, contends with the flesh without. The desires to be known and to know, and to hold and held with the fullness of trust and honesty... its marred by death and history. I am a broken mind and a broken body. I am a strong will armoured in rusted plate. A relic of an old time, forged in young bones. Tired within, tired without.

The Deep Cold

 I saw him shivering from a deep cold as I asked him some casual questions to step my words closer to something of substance. He gave me an honest answer to the questions that I didn't even make my way to asking. He looked at me and said "You know what's going on... YOU, know exactly what I am going through" With disarmed pretense I calculated the costs of honesty, but I held back. "do you want to talk about it?" I asked, knowing that he knows that I would understand. That if there was something that knew how deep that cold was, I did. I held my tongue from wagging some unsolicited advice.

I remember sitting where was. That feeling of proverbial shrapnel embedded in your lungs and heart so that every pulse and every breath bears remembrances. You feel like you survived something that you weren't meant to, and a part of you is still out there in the debris. I remember sitting where he was, in the cold, and a man approached me and beckoned me to chat with him. My wounds were many, and bled upon his feet as I spoke of a ghost that never died that still haunts my dreams. His words were that of a friends when he spoke to me saying "It will continue to hurt for a very long time" With the honesty I'd have cried if it weren't for the fact that my tears had all been spent. I looked at him because he knew. He didn't try to address my pain with superficial words or sugarcoated falsehoods. He told me the very direct and necessary truth.

There are still pieces of that bullet in my chest and I can still feel them when I move sometimes. The heart scars, and we survive and we soldier on, moving forward facing whatever new thing the next day brings. I'd tell him that it will always hurt, but the pain will dull in time. As real as the cold bites to the bone, the harshness of winter will always pass