...

I'm avoiding responsibility. Thank you.

This past Spring term I took a writing poetry class at BYU from one the most incredible individuals I have ever met. The first time you meet him you just sit in shock while your brain mumbles to itself "People like you exist...people like you actually exist...".

Thank goodness.
(By the way...weird idiom we use...)

Anyway-I was sitting in class one day listening to my professor spew brilliantness all over the room when he said the phrase "words fail". I remember feeling like everything faded from there. His voice seemed softer and the other students closely surrounding me seemed to pull away. I could hear my pulse, I could hear it and it seemed to drowned out the shuffling of white noise. My chest ached as my breathing staggered. Flooding every sense was that concept and that emotion. And in front of me was a blank page with two words written down. Words. Fail.

So I wrote and wrote and wrote and tried to write a poem about that. Words failing.

(Words) (Loss)

Pairs of worn shoes.
Only one set of footprints.
A scent’s whisper fades
While he…you…
and…-
but…-
(breathe)…-
no…

And appropriately...words failed.

But hey-it gives me a life long project to work on. But how does one do that? Language isn't perfect. Words do fail all the time. How many times do you hear "I don't know how to explain it...I can't think of a word for it...Words can't describe...". Or how many times is silence the only answer that seems appropriate. And yet we keep trying. We keep talking. We keep writing. And we keep reading.