Word Warning

Choose your words with care, my friend,
for words have power to destroy;
to shred a loving heart as sure as sharpest steel.
A careless word can kill a world,
as bombs and bullets do.

The thoughtless talk of "them" and "they",
the ones who don't belong,
the others, the outsiders,
the ones who are not "us".
You push all the blame for all the woes
in your little, little world on "them".
"If only they were gone", you say,
"our world would so very perfect be,"

But then, it never is.

Chose your words with care, my friend.
for your words may destroy the very one
on whom your life depends.