The Art of Language

Words are important

Because they are carefully crafted
They are heavy
They hold weight and emotion and fun
They can break bones and shatter hearts and destroy thoughts
You don't mess around with words
You don't mess around with their letters
You can't butcher what you don't know
But we all know words
We all know communication through these squiggly symbols we have no choice but to understand.

We have long luxury words that stretch out across the paper and before you even know what it says
You know
You know it looks nice
It looks elegant
It looks like a word you could not make up
But if you could make it up
It would remain the exact same
Because it is perfectly laid across the page
Like lengthy legs on a well dressed lady
It struts and turns and no moves are too rough
It's smooth and spelled perfectly.

We have short words spat on a page in sadness or rage or spite or sometimes laziness
Although that is not preferred
Those are the words you could create
In an angry sputtering
Stuttering and stumbling
To find the perfect word
To insult, to destroy, to crumble out of your lips
Sprawled across a rough edged paper
Meaningful and meaningless
Unnecessary and completely needed.

We have short sweet carrying words that move us from one thing to the next
They are everywhere
No matter how angry
Or happy
Or sad
They have to be present
To carry the language on
To make the sentence dance
Because when left on their own
They just sit, or sprawl, or lay, and don't move the thought on
You see them and you think
'My, what a (luxurious) (angry) (depressing) word'
But you have no idea why

But the why is most important
And so are the words that carry the beautiful ones on their backs
Helping thoughts from place to place
The unpaid taxi cabs of our symbolic words worlds.
Some might say the unacknowledged heroes
That bounce us back to the present past and future

Words are important.

10/13/2014
Riley Welch