this heart's on fire

It’s funny how words spoken over the telephone can change the course of a life. Can mold it into something you never wanted it to be. Like clay. Shaped into the unthinkable. Words that, apparently, the speaker can’t touch—can’t revise, can’t edit, can’t retract. The clay placed into a kiln, inducing irreversible changes—never to be pliable, reimagined, or scrapped entirely. Thousands of degrees that tattooed the words on a heart. Words that danced upon countless telephone wires, thousands of miles away. To reach your ear. Your heart. Your mind. Never to be forgotten. Never to be erased. 

Silly words. Just words. Unsure words. Unconfident words. Clumsy words. Blurted to fill air.

Words.  

Words that, even if the speaker smashed the ceramic against a concrete wall, would never be forgotten by the listener. Shards of remembrance. 

Words.