If I Am Made of Words

If I Am Made of Words

If I am made of words

Even when I am silent, my voice can still be heard.

On my tongue the words taste sweet

On my lips, salty, not with tears, 

but with conversation well-seasoned, 

sharing words 

too heavy to carry alone

wisdom, justice, truth.

If I am made of words

My hands teach tenderness

Outstretched to spell 

thanks, refuge, grace.

The lines on my palm a map

unreadable, until it joins with another,

hands clasped together like syllables emerging

a sentence, a beginning.

The first line of a love poem 

and with time, the end, 

the date illegible, loosely scrawled until it arrives 

in its bold finality.

On my knees is written humility. 

Bent, only I can see it as the word changes, transforms,

the swirling letters rearrange, acceptance transmogrifies, 

And there is peace.

I write faith on my feet 

To walk the unmarked path

losing the way where words fail, 

Then remembering again to take another tentative footstep 

towards hope.

If I am made of words

I wait with impatient patience to read what I will become.

Written in my heart,

a word I cannot see but sense,

Love

It fills me, guides me

in all its iterations, in languages I have yet to learn.

This is how I am written. 

Originally featured in Color Story 2021