Last Words
Jan 10 2011


Words have consequences.

When you think you won’t be heard.
When you’ll say whatever it takes.
Even the words you never said,
and now regret
you didn’t.

You can always wait
for time to heal, memory blur.
You can retract the nasty attitude
take back slurs,
or assert that they misheard.
Politicians, especially.

But when the encouraging word
eluded you.
When you failed to return
the call.
When last words were said in anger,
deathbed left to cliché.
When you wanted to tell her
I love you,
and thought you had time to wait.

We appropriate hateful words
as empowering,
like faggot, nigger, nerd.
But when she called me an asshole, a bastard
it stuck,
her diatribe well-deserved.
I sulked in silence,
wanting to call after her
as if language still could work.

Trouble is
words aren’t sticks and stones.
They’re more like barbed hooks
razor-sharp.
The work their way in.
Leave permanent scars.