By kevin urenda, kluless70@hotmail.com
Date: 6 August 1998

These Words

The desperation I feel
just doesn’t come out right in
the fatigued old words I speak to you 
face to face or in those
I speak to your hair
on the pillow at night as you drift away 
from me and into sleep.

I have become a victim 
of this desperation only
I don’t know how to beg
you to save me
from drowning in a sea
of emotions I cannot
control.

Now with these words
I can control
how the emotion rolls
off the ball of my pen
or darkens the computer screen
because I can’t control them when I speak —
you can’t hear what I’m feeling
because you only hear what I say.

These words 
can be preserved —
the emotions they contain
can be packaged 
perhaps in a way that
can touch your heart

and make you respond
to these words.