The words have always been there.

I cannot remember feeling anything with vigor

and not having the words.

They stay in my spine, they don't reach my lips.

They make me ache and burn and itch,

the words I grew bold with.

It began so quietly,

writing songs in the evening hours,

whispered melodies and scheming rhymes.

They grew louder and stronger,

more eloquent and descriptive than my senses,

bigger and better than my life.

Even when I was lonely

and the world caved in on me,

the words built me shelter in the storms.

Now, they come to me again

and again in the dead of night,

I itch and burn and ache.

These words are not a talent,

they are not a gift I unwrapped on my birthday.

They have slept with me all the days of my life.

The words are my backbone,

every muscle, every nerve.

The language my body reacts to.

I do not write to simply enjoy it,

or just to share it, or just to make the grade-

I do not have a choice.

The words are the only path I have ever known to understanding the inner corners of my own mind.

The words are the only friends that never left, the only enemies that made amends.

The words are the worlds I do not live and the memories I do not make.

They are lies and truths and everything I will not say.

I do not make the words.

The words make me.