words flow from fingertips like a crescendo;
fluid, like music, music to the soul,
especially to a broken one that
needs the band-aid of flats and sharps.
hearing your music makes my ears ring, soar, and fly,
then crash into them, so i can float
in and out of the vowels and consonance's.

its in the curve of a "c"
or the inflection of a single letter
that can make all the difference in the world
to a sentence; whether or nor it can
stand on its own or blaze, worthless.

i am that letter.
the letter that decides
whether or not "i" comes before or after "e,"
and whether or not there needs to be an apostrophe.

you are that vowel.
you are the factor that indicates
whether or not it is a hard sound, or a soft one;
the tail end of a word that is silent but pivitol.
yet, when the trees fall,
we are either the water that can
carry it to the end result, or the ground
that cracks the backbone of wishful thinking
and unheard (or heard, who knows) desires.
we are the rock.
we are the hard place,
and we are everything in between
because we have to be.
we fill voids like cement; like plaster.

the cracks and wounds
bleed from every orifice,
and we, akin to some alert, well nurtured mother,
come in on the backs
of our peroxide and kisses to 'make it all better.'

we are the healers;
we are the scholars.
we are the world, and the world is us.
we are all apart of each other,
everything in a never ending cycle,
one huge paradox that leaves us
with heads spinning and lungs hyperventilating
because they cant handle the pressure.

but we can.

we can dive into the depths,
and when the water tries to flood
our nerves and steal our equilibrium,
we merely laugh into the tidal waves
and swallow a little salt with our victory.
we are the saving graces of those who reach out.
we are the ones who will stand apart,
and yet, in the end, we will stand alone,
for there are few who can walk beneath the world,
like atlas, and not succumb to the weight.

07/30/2002

Author's Note: this i had posted in my bio, and decided i needed to put it somewhere. i love this piece, even though it wasn't a poem originally. after some careful editing, i decided it was time for these words to be birthed here, in the playground of my mind.

Posted on 09/07/2003
Copyright © 2024 Rachelle Howe