Words Like Water

Sometimes the words won’t stay still.

 They slip through my fingers

 like water refusing to be held,

 letters spinning, jumping,

 taunting me to understand them again and again.

People see the stumbles,

 the pauses, the misspelled dreams.

 But they don’t see the quiet war,

 the courage it takes

 to face a page that turns its back on me.

I’ve cried over words

 that float above the page,

 over sentences that blurred from my tears

 until they felt like closed in secrets

the world never wanted me to know.

Still, I reach for them.

 Because somewhere between

 the broken lines and tangled sounds,

 I find my own rhythm,

 a heartbeat made of motion,

 a language only I can comprehend.

And though the words may never sit still,

 they still belong to me,

 wild, and imperfect, 

 they taught me.