Excerpts From A Book I'll Never Write

a way with words

You have a way with words, they said. I said, which one?

Did you mean, the way it's swindled down and formed a knife that are now stuck on my back, wounds bloody and rotting?

Did you mean, the way it's a carcass circled around by vultures, swarmed by worms and flies, flesh picked apart pieces by pieces until what left is but a pile of bones?

Did you mean, the way it's a tsunami of apology that will be forever unsent to my mother now six feet under?

Or did you mean, the way my fingers, bruised and calloused, managed to weave them into beautiful poetic sentences, every time?

— tell me what kind of way, exactly, do I have with words