WORDS WELL WORN

Some forge their weapons in offices,

slick tongues sharpened,

honed to a politician’s gleam,

smiling lies like oil slicks on honest seas.

Every syllable slung at the soul

for profit,

for control,

for greed.

But not me.

Not us.

Not the kin of story.

We who live by the shudder of language,

who hold each word like a child’s heartbeat in our palm,

we will not let them steal what is sacred.

We breathe an old tongue,

a clean tongue,

the feral, fearless truth-tongue

we let it break us,

build us,

burn us better.

We are scribes of the ache,

of the delight,

of the whole terrible, wonderful human fight.

Our grammar is grit.

Our punctuation, blood.

Our syntax, the trembling bridge

between our brokenness and our becoming.

Each story spun in trembling hand

is an act of rebellion,

each poem a tightening of the soul’s fist

against the creeping dark.

We are the keepers of clear words,

we are the rememberers of meaning.

Let them hawk their shiny emptiness.

Let them auction their easy lies.

We?

We will speak the spells

that keep the heartbeats fierce,

keep the tongue to pierce,

keep the vision clear;

so we write.