Words

Words have a tendency to haunt me with their affection
For they all strive to liquefy and become real
I look for a place to be alone
And words scurry past my feet on my way there like bugs
They buzz with wings and creep with their numerous legs
They slither and whisper like sisters with their peculiar sounds
All diverse, each word its own species

But words don’t know words they disperse
And hum melodies until I sleep
Night and day I breathe and drink words
And I wash the germs off with water and words
When I am with words I teem with their fragrance
But they alone have no smell, no face, no mothers
For the word celibate can smell like the word peppermint
And peppermint can look like pelicans
And pelicans can drink tea with the word etiquette
And etiquette feels like rhetoric
And when I assemble these words together
They tend to sound like the word relatives

For words beg to be stripped from their roots like fruits and twigs
They beg to be seen and heard and known
I often write because I can release these words like prisoners
Into the majesty of dawn
So they can dance in its rays until sunset takes them away
To the edge of the earth with its rosy chariot of molten gold
And maybe find a warm human heart for a place to call home