the sad side of Words

by Erica Mazzeo

the sad side of words

make themselves clear

in a frenzy.

eg. Running to meet each other in the parking lot

the woman yells, "I love you!"

and the man slowly backs

away in the spring rain.

For the poised and meticulous

there are not really any

sad sides -

just structured statements without any fancy bows.

I easily screamed, "I hate you!" to

my mother when I was

eights years old - now the sad

side of words point out -it's too late to go back and clean it up-

"Are you crazy?" I confront the

sad side of words

--

but they

just ignore me.

Carolers came around singing,

"We wish you a merry christmas!"

The sad side then threw in, "oh!

and a happy new year!"

They are wasted letters,

untimely alphabetical deaths

- too overlapping in their careless nature,

and too much.

My cat seems to understand when she

negotiates the overuse of

her "Me-oW"

Still, "this is the most delicious dessert

in the entire world!" is a delectable utter.

or "I miss you so much that it hurts!"

"He's brilliant" the sad side exclaims

about Einstein's theorems. How predictable,

and presumptuous I think to myself but

I've learned to keep it in.

The sad side reminds me, like an old

sage with a pointed nose (looking down),

that all of the, "i love you"s, the

"i never meant to hurt you"s,

the questions like "what do you want for lunch?"

right down to the

classic, "will you marry me?"

are superfluous necessity.

Yet I wouldn't revoke any of them even if

I had a second time around

- and knowing that,

running past the words,

the dictionary of "give up" -

pushing over the thesaurus and

easily manipulating the antidote of blank space.

Escaping

to

s

c

r

e

a

m

"Please will you write me?"

chasing my love down in the fog once again

and the sad side nearby tapping

foot on the sidewalk,

nodding in disappointment at me,

"you'll never get it, will you?"

I pull away from each adjective,

rip myself from each noun, verb and

adverb.

"whatever" I

whisper, "your lacking leaves something

to be desired" I shoot back

to the sad side

and pull my sweatshirt hood up

over my head

turning my back to walk away.