One day she batted her fake lashes and
told me that she
hated
writing.
And I just smiled that smile we make
when someone speaks on a subject
on which they understand very little.
How sad that she didn’t realize
that words aren’t just letters
and
sentences aren’t just words.
That words
are lions, and pens and tongues
the whips cracking in fluid succession.
That real readers hold their breath
because they can feel the steam
of the lions’ beating body boiling out
onto their tucked noses as their brains balance
between the beasts’ golden lips. And
that the ringleader, with the snap of a
single syllable
can lock the jaws on exposed gray matter,
can wake the apathetic, can remind us that
we’re human.
