Unspoken

These are the words that may or may not ever escape the brain, get past the vocal cords, leave on the breath escaping the mouth at a given time.  They may be said once or merely thought and agonized over for long tracts of time, never more.  If they do get expressed, they get vocalized but once, and such is the life span of these words.  They are doomed to never be repeated, never restated, never explained.

And yet what characterizes them most of all, perhaps, is the inability to forget them.  Each phrase is one that will be built up and torn down again and again until it reaches a state as nearly approaching perfection as is reasonably possible for a human construct to be.  It is vocalized again and again in one's brain until the heart races and the breath refuses to come.  Sometimes the words are choked out eventually, other times they never reach the surface.  They are never as perfect as one would like them to be.  They hardly ever carry the desired tone or anticipated power.

Once heard, they are likewise never abandoned.  Every word, every tone, each minute pause and flicker of the eye is scrutinized.  The phrases haunt and linger, weaving infinite tendrils of questions and confusion into the mind.  But these are the things of which one does not ask questions.  Here these things are not brought to trial or mention.  They are left to lie.  Never forgotten, always ignored.

Sometimes, maybe an eternity later, they re-emerge, after the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared, they are finally brought to the surface.  Once it no longer matters, there is no fear or insecurity involved in bringing them to light.  So they are analyzed piece by piece again, running from both perspectives, as the knot is untangled and understanding revealed, perspectives exchanged, and ideas made sense of after it no longer makes the least difference anywhere at all.