Words

I do not know if the words I breathe are worth the life I give them,
or if they shrivel and turn brown like a dying leaf in autumn,
wasting away in spite of all my effort, time, and care.
I do not know if they paint the picture I wish them to paint,
or if, once free from the bindings of my mind, they go mad and careless,
taking the world and meaning I wish for them and making it their own.

Words are wild things, forever changing and growing like vines in a forest that overtake and squeeze and thrive,
green and genuine and glorious but suffocating and troublesome to the things without sense to be afraid.

Words can have flowers, alluring blossoms that brighten shadow and accentuate beauty like finely-made jewels around a lovely neck.
Words can have thorns, long sharp barbs and thistles that stick and stab and poison the blood and mind in a way that cannot be cured.

I do not know if the words I use to spit fire and distaste
are as powerful as the ones I use to whisper love and affection,
and I do not know if it is worth the risk to find out.
I do not know what my words, my thoughts, my little souls are destined for,
whether they are poetry or song, fact or fiction,
whether they are lamented, reckless, beauteous, or toxic.

I do not know, but I will speak them, and I will write them, and I will bleed them and live them and breathe them,
and they will go out into the world and make it, or break it, but they will outlast me, and they will live for me,
and through it all they will be mine.

I know that.