Words

I try to choose my words carefully

because I want you to understand me

to know exactly what I mean.

Yet so often you react

like everything I say is nonsense.

I want clarity,

certainty,

precision,

never confusion,

but there are so many phrases

and often

I select the wrong one,

especially when I try to explain my hurt,

when I try to tell you what you did

that made me cry,

and why.

You only hear the blame, the accusations,

and not that I want us to fix what happened.

I don’t know the word

that means

you were wrong

and I still want us to be okay.

And when I say I love you

what I am trying to say is

I know you are imperfect

because I am too,

but I am not quitting on us.

But the words I choose

never sound quite right.

Like when I say

“I love you, warts and all”

but your body is free of warts

so that’s untrue.

Or if I declare

“you are my person”

knowing full well

you are your own person.

So I look through the dictionary

searching for the perfect word.

I have not found it yet.

Maybe it doesn’t exist.

Maybe I need to invent it,

create one,

say something new.

Or maybe,

I just need to be quiet,

stop disrupting the silence.

Maybe I just need to listen.