Illustration by Dulce Maria Pop-Bonini
Sometimes Words Aren’t Enough
A poem about coming to terms with the apparent shallowness of words, and that while they are the only things we can use for description, they end up feeling redundant.
Oct 27, 2024
And I say this with words
Nothing more, nothing less
Words are not enough to relay
what goes in a heart
as small as my fist
Or like the wandering of my mind
Not enough power like a whisper
in a breeze cold and piercing
Not enough like the taste
of bitter saliva in a dry mouth
Not like wet eyes
letting down salty tears
Sometimes words aren’t enough
And in the state of feels I hear my calling
I am but a collection of rhyming stanzas
in poems forgotten in a diary on a shelf
mandarin and brown
I am but a warm sound
in an ode to Beirut
Good words will never
spit out a nostalgia -
a missing, a longing
In the yearning amidst the snowstorm of fear
Still cold and piercing
Sometimes words aren’t enough
And honey no longer drips after a compliment
no longer the smell of leaves in my hair
no longer in despair
Like the delicacy of ruminating in isolation
Words reach a limit, a divider —
an equator of a planet lost and groundless
Words are not enough for maps
that locate my geographies, my history
And with my fingers, I point on a piece of paper my grave
on land a mass and a slave to its reality
Sometimes words aren’t enough
Underwater and inconspicuous
in waves and blues
in hues like that of a breakdown, of a cry
A fire in the woods
and yet cold and piercing
Sometimes words aren’t enough
They are not enough
but they are all I have
and I hold on to them
As the sky does to stars
as the beach does to sand
And I drown in words
my weapon and my voice
Words are not enough
To tell that covers my eyes
and to those I love
In a language only I speak
in words I complete
a story, my story
And that of sentences
I dream to read.
Dina Aldamouri is a Staff Writer. Email them at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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