Words are everything in my world.

They comprise the books I love reading after a draining day at work. They fill pages after pages of stories that take me from where I am and launch me into another world, someone else’s world. They stand as an open door luring me into an unknown escape. They don’t rush me or hurry me along, they wait patiently on me to crack the spine of the weathered book they lie dormant in and come alive until my eyes are heavy and I am lulled into sleep.

They are my own personal solace for when I am feeling happy, sad, overwhelmed, indifferent, angry, and all emotions in-between. They willingly fly from my fingertips onto a page. Relief crashing over me like the feeling of finding someone I thought was lost. They bring me peace and comfort. When my emotions overcome me I run to my computer or my journal. I blindly write until that need, that nagging itch, is satisfied.

They shine light into the closed off room of my heart, they explain what I sometimes can’t when talking. They make me bare, translucent almost. They pull venerability from my heart and they make me brave and confident. They help others to understand me and they oftentimes help me to understand myself.

They help people from different ends of the world come together in similar thoughts, feelings and situations. The unite us all. They sometimes hit us just right and the feeling of being alone fades away as we find there is someone else that understands us.

And some sad times, hopefully seldom times, they crush me. They hurt me. They are cruel and mean and they fire out from the mouth of someone who doesn’t cherish words the way I do. They rip me to shreds, these words. Horrible words that come from the beautiful language I cherish so dearly. The fact they can go from everything I enjoy about my small little world to the weapon that breaks my heart, ultimately does just that, it breaks me.

Then I do the unthinkable. I use them to hurt others as well. I lash out, I think of the meanest words possible and sometimes I say them. Other times I beg the person I am screaming with not to say them, always aware of the power they hold.

What’s worse is that they stay with you. Loving words flee quickly, easily taken for granted, but the ugly ones always stay. They permanently do, even when I think I’ve let them float away. These words are ones I can’t stand. They stick all over my body like leeches. I try to rip them off, I try to move on but I can’t. They suffocate me and they suck the love right from me. They vibrate through my mind for weeks after. I feel their weight on me. I feel other people’s eyes on them covering me. I hate these words.

And yet, I love them, they are magical in all their power. I have always loved them and will always love them and part of that means willingly taking the bad words with the good. The kind words with the cruel and the loving words with the hateful ones. I am reminded to pick my own words more carefully, for I can create love with words, or hate.