Terrible Words

   Half of her shelf is filled with books. Half of her shelf is littered with words scrawled on scattered papers, words that she wrote down just to get them out. When they stay inside too long, she chokes on them. They make her lungs stutter for breath until she can take in the essence of ink on paper and find breath again.

   Words have been described as beautiful, crucial, and indispensable. Words have been described as necessary and incredible, words have been loved and cherished and clung to for dear life. But the truth that she sees is that words

     are terrible.

   Not terrible in the sense that the words themselves are evil or ghastly or horrendous, but in the sense that they are nightmarish. They pressure her to write them; they drive her to abandon other passions in surrender of them -

     of words.

   Words hold her captive while demanding to be released, contradicting and arguing all in the name of expression through her lips and fingers. Words are powerful, they emanate and shake with untold secrets of strength. Will they save this time, or destroy? Will they take her to joy or anger? They harness a power that cannot always be controlled, and that instills in her true fear. Why take the risk of pain when there is the alternative of not using the power at all? She could just stay silent on the sidelines, as she so often does, but sometimes, so often, the pressure

     is too much to resist.

   Half of her shelf is filled with books of clear plot and path and purpose, and the other half is cluttered with unfinished thoughts and indecipherable ideas. When she tries to bring the two halves of shelf together, she ends up with only a strange, enchanting mess that she can never quite set straight. She wants to know:

     Does that mean that the words are meant for her alone?

Or is she allowed to rearrange them in an attempt to share them half-understandably with the world?

   There is always the half chance that her words will inspire something beautiful, but paired with the other half chance that they will wreak havoc in their terror, is it worth it to take the risk? Where will this expression through lips and fingers take her,

     if anywhere at all?

   This she asks of the letter-masters, of the word-whisperers and the sentence-sewers: is there gratification and worth in a pursuit of taming even a small amount of this power? Is there even the slightest chance of victory for her? Will she drown in the power of the terrible words, or will their beauty shine forth, shine true, and bring her to a place of half goodness? Half of her shelf is filled with books, and the other half is filled with dangerous words, and it lies with her to decide

     on whether she can keep them to herself.