I've learned my ABCs at one,
learned to read by four,
constructed my paragraphs at six,
a know-it-all reciting parts of speech by seven.

Letters assembled themselves ready for scrabble.
Rocks, paper, scissors,
I never learned to let go of the paper.
And grew up with dry fingers caressing books.
Breathing in language and literature.

They say you can only love something so much
until it leaves you empty.
But I've only ever truly loved a few things about life,
and first was how words strung empathy.

The way I wrote about tying yellow ribbons on trees for a hero at eleven,
wrote about anything that won me passports to a passion I had to sacrifice a few years later after fourteen,
wrote about the boy who broke my heart at seventeen,
wrote about the monsters in my head at nineteen.

I don't know how words always found me
whenever I tried to run away from the world;
how they kept my sanity along with melodies for as long as I can remember,
and made countless others feel less alone.

What I love is a weapon
that has sparked revolutions, waged wars.
What I love is art that built acropolises from embers
and most the world's wonders.

It rushes euphoriant through my veins as much as it does through yours,
yet it is neither blood nor oxygen.
It is all the words burning as we keep them hidden,
dying for us to give them meaning.