Sticks and Stones

They say that sticks and stones break bones better than words. Words are just words; air and guttural grunting mixed in a fashion of speech.

But such speech is not baseless or boneless. Words are just words and yet they build thoughts. They influence the mind and being and while separating them, ties them therefore together.

Words are the nervous system of understanding more than blood, and then that of the blood itself. Words are a foundation of awareness that no one person could pinpoint.

Words are daggers; until sharpened they are but a husk hidden within the sheath of the mind. They are a parry and throw of backlashes and jabs. Words are a dance, a challenge, a myth of safety in the protection of their being.

Words are a gift; you learn them, forge paths upon their narrows and widths. You can give heart and blood in words, or you can give pain. But do not mistake that those too are words gifts.

Words are not weightless, as they settle in you mind. They project onto shoulders and hearts alike. They drag us in alleys of shout and whispers, and even if you can’t touch them I promise they scrape the gravel behind you like glass clinking together in darkness.

Words can and will hurt you. They leave scars like canyons; they burrow and wash away and take them as they leave. Words enter harmlessly and may never leave your canvas, and even if you can’t see the damage, I need not show where it hurts.

Words, they say, are not as effective at stick and stones on physical bones, and on that matter I agree. But the skeletons in your closet are fueled by these gifts and erode your subconscious as you rise through the day.

The river often runs slow when you are not in its current. The birds don’t fly so high when toes curl in grass. Like time, words have no boundaries, but understand is and awareness that build on your nerves like a dagger weighed down with gifts of our ends;

The birds are out of your reach. The grass keeps you hostage. The river pulls you into its canyon, and time will stop for no man.

What do you have to say for yourself?