Wasted on the Aftershock

Sometimes I think words are wasted on the aftershock. The feeling of rage...it’s powerful. Runs through your body like weapons, and lord knows your artillery is dense. The words cascade from your mouth like you’d had them on your tongue all along. But I think words are wasted on the aftershock.

When they hit its like a b***h fight. A slap, not a punch. And they hurt like a flame, not a forest fire. Not the destruction you’d wanted. But it’s the same match that lights a cigarette and breathes cancer into your lungs. ‘Cause the words taste sweet, but you’ve started a trend.

The times? Well you’ve changed them. And the way you look at the people beside you is not the same. Forgiven, forgotten, and moving on are all very different things. Because words - we string them together, but they’re not a fishing line and you can’t reel them back in.

So you think time will heal them - the scorch marks that score your skin. But time’s like a body, it heals but scars are dense. And they only fade, they do not turn to fiction. You’ll always know from where they came.

And if you could set your soul on fire and watch it burn as you did with the seared bodies around you, you would. But the world’s not so kind, and it gives no mercy to destroyers. It gives no mercy at all. And the best you can hope for is the fate that’s already coming to you.

So you’ve smartly dressed yourself in new words and new ways hoping this new kindness will improve your relations. But they’re dwindling into the fiction you’d hoped for, though not in this way.

At this new, languid pace you see it all with stunning clarity. And as you sit in silence amongst the new acquaintance of used to be friends, I think you’ll have to say - Words are wasted on the aftershock.