Words and Silences


           

“LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS?” - Terry Pratchett, Death and What Comes Next

Sometimes I walk on edges, weighing my words, considering, rethinking, then not using them at all. There are rules we follow inside our heads- what to say, what not to say, who to speak to, what not to hear. When to smile and bury the anger. When to go off-stage so no one hears you. Relationships are built on silences, on things unsaid- for words are like that wisp of wind that tangles the curtain and breaks the glass menagerie into a billion thousand shards that you can no longer piece together, so sharp that they will cut you. Language is beauty. Language is art. Language is a lie, a tool that sometimes works by not working at all. So many words that we speak inside our heads that never meet the air waves! The words that we planned to say but never did because there wasn’t enough time, courage or because life overtook our unspoken histories and made us use other, new words. Language is love, sometimes silently so.
This was just a pointless ramble. As an acquaintance on Twitter recently said- words are inadequate anyway so why care for meanings? But sometimes, it feels good to write it all out.
Thank you for reading.

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