My Words

Words.

Simple words.

They mean nothing.

No seriously.

Take a second and think about it.

These words you’re reading,

these little letters that are simply squiggles and lines and crosses?
They mean nothing...

by themselves,

that is.

By themselves,

these stupid little squiggles and lines and crosses are nothing.

But when I write them down,

when I squish their malleable forms together into words,

when I make these words mine,

they mean something.
These words and letters and squiggles and lines and crosses?
They mean something.

Because I make them mean something.

Because I make them mine.

I’m not trying to say I invented the word or gave it it’s definition,

because I obviously didn’t.

But only I can use them the way I use them.

But this isn’t about the possession of words,

or how weird they are..

It’s the power of them.

Their absolute,

pure,

corruptible,

wholesome,

breakable

power.

Take a second to think about what words mean,

dictionary definitions.

Cat,

for example.

A dictionary definition would be

The domestic cat is a small, usually furry, domesticated, and carnivorous mammal,

as quoted by google.

But that’s not what the word really means.

When someone thinks of cat,

they might think about the little fuzzy four legged guy that strolls all nonchalant around their house,

acting like he owns the place,

jumping up on the couch to maybe take a quick nap,

or sauntering on over to the kitchen to see what’s for dinner.
And when people don’t give him enough attention,

he let loose a ferocious MEOW to make his presence known.

Or,

maybe it’s the rugged and raspy looking furball you saw on the street the other day.

The one that was all dirty and frail looking,

wandering around helplessly with a slight limp,

simply begging to be hit in the middle of the street to end his suffering.
The one that you decided to save,

to make the deciding call.

The one whose flame is still burning because you wouldn’t let it go out.

That’s a cat.

Not

The domestic cat is a small, usually furry, domesticated, and carnivorous mammal.

And that’s the power of words.

Not to define things and feeling,

but to produce them and emanate feelings,

to bring about emotions,

to make something well up from deep inside,

to bubble and boil,

to burn and heat,

and erupt out of our souls into amazing feats of passion and self-expression,

into actions of kindness and selflessness,

or maybe in acts of well deserved selfishness that ended a long lasting depression.

Maybe it explodes into the breaking of shackles made by others,

created to hold us back and keep us down,

that kept us from being who we really are,

from realizing who we want to be.

Words are weapons,

terribly strong and horribly undervalued.

They’re organized pieces of us,

that represent us,

that make us.

They’re pieces that we spit out without second thoughts,

pieces that we slap on papers we never look at again,

pieces that we let go to waste without ever making them matter.

These are pieces that we need to finish the puzzle people.

We’re throwing away the keys to the solution,

parts of something bigger.

We stopping ourselves without even giving ourselves a chance.

Why?

Because we don’t appreciate these words.

We throw them around,

toss them around uselessly,

as if they’re just tools.

But they’re not.

They’re weapons.
Weapons that we misfire left and right.
We hit civilians,

friends,

family.

The people we care about most.
They’re the ones most often shot down,

mistakenly.

Regrettably.

We tear shreds in them with these rocket powered words;

reduce them to ribbons with a mere sixty letters,

five seconds worth of oxygen and time,

Sixty decibels worth of volume.

These same words dig the graves,

not just theirs but our own.

But they don’t have to.

These words,

they don’t have to be so damn destructive.

They don’t.
They can be the needles.

The needles which we use to sew our broken pieces back together,

the patch together the holes and tears in ourselves.

They can be the metal detector we use to find those pieces that we lost so long ago,

the ones buried six inches deep in our souls.

These words can be the band-aids,

no,

the stitches that we use to piece ourselves together.

These words can be so so much.
They’re so pure,

so absolute.

And nobody realizes that.

I didn’t even realize that.
I went around throwing pieces of me away left and right,

ripping myself into little confetti sized bits of nothing,

devaluing everything that I ever was,

that I ever stood for.

I didn’t appreciate them,

didn’t understand them.

But now I do.

I’m using these words,

my words,

to do something special.

I’m using my words to inspire yours.

Look around.

Suck in all the details,

let your eyes feast upon the buffet of the damaged and the broken,

upon the confused and the helpless,

upon the happy and the enlightened.
And do something about it.
Add your little piece to the puzzle.
It’s sitting there,

waiting in your throat to just jump out and do something special.
Take the extra time to wrap it with care,

to turn those little puzzle pieces into gifts,

and give them to other people.

Help them finish their puzzles,

help them find their way.

Light the path for them,

get rid of the darkness,

the demons,

the ghosts,

the monsters.

Help them out of that god forsaken haunted house that they’ve been in for so long.

Be their flashlight,

their savior,

the one who cared when everyone else didn’t.

Be the one to make a difference.

Stop the bleeding,

start the helping,

the healing,

the process of getting better,

of becoming the phoenix and RISING,

SOARING,

from those ashes,

defiantly,

successfully,

finally.

Be inspired by others words and inspire with yours.

Don’t just toss them aside.

Don’t EVER let them go to waste.
These words are people too.

Don’t be the one to throw away a life.

Save it instead.