Ian

“It is likely I will die next to a pile of things I was meaning to read.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Your words have the power of life and death. Choose them wisely.”
― Orrin Woodward

“Words.

I’m surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions.

Cathedral. Mayonnaise. Pomegranate.
Mississippi. Neapolitan. Hippopotamus.
Silky. Terrifying. Iridescent.
Tickle. Sneeze. Wish. Worry.

Words have always swirled around me like snowflakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

Deep within me, words pile up in huge drifts. Mountains of phrases and sentences and connected ideas. Clever expressions. Jokes. Love songs.

From the time I was really little—maybe just a few months old—words were like sweet, liquid gifts, and I drank them like lemonade. I could almost taste them. They made my jumbled thoughts and feelings have substance. My parents have always blanketed me with conversation. They chattered and babbled. They verbalized and vocalized. My father sang to me. My mother whispered her strength into my ear.

Every word my parents spoke to me or about me I absorbed and kept and remembered. All of them.

I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings.

But only in my head.

I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Out of My Mind

“Words - take her with you
let her rest in your rhymes
Words - take her away
somewhere beyond time

Words - ease her breathing
lay her softly on the floor
there - let her linger
and listen like ever before

Leave her windows uncovered at night
and fill her room with the citylights
as they illuminate the sky
it reminds her of the people outside
cause she won't sleep unless she heals her loneliness

Walk with her beneath the treetops
create new paths and memories
show her how the sunlight
glances through the gaps between the leaves

Words - help her change the world
in only one verse
tell her to reach for the stars
and to always put love first

Leave her windows uncovered at night
and fill her rooms with the citylights
as they illuminate the sky
it reminds her of the people outside
it reminds her of the people
it reminds her of the people
it reminds her of the people outside.”
― Ane Brun