Power of Word

There are words written, I believe, that once read, stay with you forever. They shape you, perhaps, become that seed, growing sub rosa within you. Some words, I believe, are read only to pass the time. They fall as pebbles into a great pond, crating a big splash for a second, and then vanishing, never altering the water level. The best words will make you angry. A confusing anger, in which you’ll realize the argument is not between you and the author, but within yourself.

In novels those may be the characters that do that which you absolutely wished they would not. Your brow furrows and your hands clench the book just a little bit harder. You adjust your feet farther onto the bed and prop yourself up as your sympathetic system gets your body ready to fight. Your heart rate picks up and your eyes are not your own anymore. You are not of this world. Should another come in, creeping quietly as to not disturb you and gently glance around the corner they would see you, curled up perfectly still, slightly frowning as a perched cat, always slightly displeased with your surroundings. You flip a page a little too roughly, too eager to get t o the next part and your head snaps diagonally to race down the black lines that so powerfully fuel you relentless hunger, a quickening deep inside the back of your brain as if gears had suddenly begun to race at top speed. The engines are running at top speed and your eyes race across the off white thick papyrus blend as you devour the next few paragraphs, pressure building as dense as a collapsed star on the verge of explosion. Your quiet companions quietly smiles and draws away, leaving you to your world curled around a frayed red book and fidgeting with the dog ears, shutting the door with a soft click, as your eyes never leaving the page. You Are racing through a forest, or hidden in the belly of a great ship, or watching the moon over a vast jungle.

And that's the beauty of words. We all know them, the basics. We could all sit down and write every single word that we know. And a great list we could compile, and in the process, perhaps create a few new ones, as we do as language evolves. Yet where would we be, with our great list of words. It is those combinations that elude us without the gift. Those small ways to combine the words, to pick the correct one to use as just the right time to make that perfect sentence. You can write the same sentence a million different ways, it's the first thing we learn in grammar school. And yet everyone develops their own tone on paper, much like one develops their voice. Some, simply remain mediocre. Some have their small moments of inspiration. Some, the very lucky few, are born with high pure voices that last a lifetime, of great, beautiful range, the opera singers, who bring audiences to tears and standing ovations. There exist those on paper, their words flowing through chords and melodies, driving out rhythms and dances so intense, the reader does not realize he has started to weep until the tears have fallen and marked the ink on the page.  There are those, to whom a gift so preciously has been bestowed. They have a silver tongue and silver mind, and their words flow more beautifully and dangerously than any flower of any poison. Those who grasp words and arrange them like music, or as a florist would a bouquet, to let its fragrance seep into the room and entrance the crowds before they had seen a single petal. It is a gift hard sought, and hard earned. It is a gift of power as those kinds of gifts go, could be used for beauty and for power. And would it not be the greatest gift of all? To have the power at your fingertips to create a world, as beautiful as you could imagine, and to leave that world for others to find and run through it by the power of the word, long after you are gone. The bird is the word.