Pay Attention
Words roll and tumble through the air
Big words, little words
Words that glow and vibrate
And words that are content to sit there
Filling in the spaces
Some words are flashy and bright
Like ostentatious.
Rolling on the tongue
Tumbling in the mouth
Reverberating in the chest
Until they come out
And everyone stares
They like being looked at
Other words don’t
Words like and, be, and maybe
It’s funny, because those words hold the most possibility
Maybe is mysterious
And fun
But challenging too
We either hate it or love it, but everyone uses it
The other words: and and be
Are necessary.
We can’t communicate without them
Big, flashy words are fun
But not necessary like the little ones
Some words flash their importance and stare you in the eye
Forcing you to take notice
Begging you to remember
Fun words like
Ambidextrous
Tatterdemalion
Or even
Symbolic
But the other words,
The ones that sit back and let the flashy ones get the attention
The ones that fill in all the spaces
The ones that are cement for our language,
Essential for communication,
We ignore
We know them, but we don’t talk about them
We use them constantly, but we don’t acclaim them
Why?
Because little things slip through the cracks,
Gradually filling them up
Creating a solid base
But the base gets concealed by the building,
The bigger words,
And the little ones get lost in the confusion
Just
Like
That