WORDS

Are all I have to take your heart away.

That’s what Barry Gibb says. His leonine confidence and sparkly white teeth make me think, indeed, that he means every single word he says.

This world has lost its glory, let’s start a brand-new story now, my love. There is a certain deliciousness to gathering up enough words in a lifetime to be able to say with pinpoint accuracy exactly what you mean to convey. After all, I don’t need the words for me so much, I need them for you. In the instance my leg should be crushed in a freak bowling accident, I do need my words to quickly and forcefully let another person know of my dilemma and for my imminent need for one of those cool new metal spring legs which would make me uber-awesome. I would be able to run and leap like a Thompson’s Gazelle or perhaps more realistically, Marion Jones sans steroids and in disgrace laden in crippling prison shackles. I could sue the bowling alley for zillions and spend my days leaping merrily into Prada or Fred Segal or the Whole Foods where Simon Cowell and Lionel Ritchie shop. It’s too bad that severe bowling accidents are extremely unusual.

Talk in everlasting words, and dedicate them all to me. Talking is not really as good as writing. Half the time, or three-quarters if we wish to be honest, most of the crap coming out of your mouth isn’t really any good. You censor, you stammer, you can’t access the right thing, say the wrong thing, then say the wrong thing again trying to explain why you said the wrong thing. Blah blah blah blah blah. No one is really truly listening to you anyway because they are busy thinking of what they are going to say themselves, or where to go for lunch, or a very very very very tiny bug crawling on the window behind you. When you write, you can edit – there is no “UNSAY, OH DEAR GOD, UNSAY!” button on your mouth. Writing, you are Lord of Words – it is all in your control and you can change or embellish or even smite away, and it’s all good. To the best of your ability you can create a statement of clarity and beauty, like, “Dear Online Swimwear Place, Please accept the return of this cheetah-print swimsuit that I ordered on February 15th and received on February 18th. When I tried on the swimsuit in the privacy of my own home and viewed myself in the mirror wearing the garment, my world was shattered into irreparable little shards, similar to a porcelain teacup flung from the top of the subzero chill of a Himalayan peak to the gritty jagged rocks below. Thank you for giving me this spandexed opportunity to fully register my shame and disgust in myself. Please credit my VISA for $120.78.”

Smile an everlasting smile, a smile can bring you near to me. Well, I don’t want an everlasting smile. It would make my cheeks hurt after awhile, and eventually be incredibly socially inappropriate. If you can write something that makes someone smile, they can keep it, more or less in an everlasting way depending on hard drive crashes or enforced paper recycling. Funny written words you can go back to over and over, and you do not have to strain to remember if it was indeed funny, unlike the hazy recollection of that raconteur at the bar who seemed hilarious because you were at the bottom of your seventh beer and had eaten nothing that day. I have smiled many times at words other people have written, even when they are not funny at all, sometimes quite the opposite. Sometimes the sentiment is so perfectly-expressed, you just have to shake your head, grin a little, and marvel that someone you do not even know has touched you with the way they strung together the words that you also use, just not quite as artfully.

You think that I don’t even mean a single word I say? HAH?

It’s only words, and words are all I have, to take your heart away.