20,206 Words - 'Words,Words,Words' (Hamlet II ii)

She Admits

She admits to loving words
She admits to carving them, splicing them, spinning them, singing them, holding them in her Mouth like rainwater, tasting them, twisting them, touching them, birthing them, breathing them, Believing them . . .
Words

She admits to expecting too much from them
She admits to holding them on her palms
As though she thinks she is all twelve Olympians
Raising her hands skyward, trying to wring a world
From words
She admits to stretching them, tying them,
Trying to make them
Magically multiply, to breathe them away
Leaving the emptiness ringing with
Meaning

She admits to wanting words
To wandering the halls hungrily searching, to knocking over plates and
Chairs in a rush for a pen and paper
She admits to burning desires, to waking in the night on fire for
A word
She admits to looking, lusting, longing . . . finally finding the right word
And being struck silent by
Adoration

She admits to shaping words so she can touch them
Paint, pencils, pens, printers
Quick wet ink against her finger whorls

She admits to writing words on the walls of her office
She admits to writing words on the walls of her heart
She admits to finding them blue and translucent swimming inside her wrists
Floating behind her elbows, hushed at her temples
Where the skin is transparent, thin
Words

She admits to the darkness, what she admits
To so few
Words of weakness, of shaky insecurity,
A trembling terror that childhood never swallowed
A fear that never has been answered
Blood on her wrists, blood like oil
Not mixing with tears, not mixing with rain
Building a bruised, broken rainbow,
Long darkly dreamed . . . not enough, not
Enough, not enough, not
Enough

She admits to
Question still
If her dancing, her dreaming
All her blessed, beloved
Words
Can possibly be reason enough
To justify even
Breath

No less pay this long ransom
On a gift
She cannot deserve


©Edwina Peterson Cross