Once at a red light, which was a bummer because I was in a hurry, but not enough to blast through and risk my wallet, license, or life. Apparently, I had been driving like a skilled maniac and the person I had cut off pulled alongside me. I could tell there was some commotion behind his window because I caught a flurry of blurred frenzy from my peripheral vision. But I was preoccupied, listening to Steven Wright on the Comedy Channel on my satellite radio. I'm sirius. Finally, I had to look.

What really made him go crazy was that I was laughing at Steven and he thought I was laughing at him. The frenzy sublimated into a shit-fit.

And I know what a shit-fit is. I've suffered them myself. Many times.

With our windows rolled down in obligatory bilateral outrage, he said the word.

"You dipshit!"

Dipshit. Dipshit? I wondered.

We separated without road-rage homicide or wanton headlight destruction via a handy golf club. But I was wounded. Dipshit...me.

I asked myself, what exactly is a dipshit.

I looked it up. Oxford probably didn't have it, and I probably didn't have an Oxford dictionary, so I went to the slang sources on the Internet.

Dipshit: (dip'shit) A contemptible person.

Not good enough. I think he was going for something stronger than "a contemptible person." No, he was going for

...a contemptible person who is a piece of shit, dipped into a piece of shit, and if had a wooden leg, he'd be shit-on-a-stick--a shitsickle; ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag; human detritus worth of nothing but flies--iridescent ones; the person no one wants to step into.

Amazing...the convoluted scatological point he was able to make with just a two-syllable compound word, a malodorous word, a contemptible word, like the person.

I resent that he called me a dipshit. I was NOT a dipshit when he called me that. But now I felt like one. He had nailed it.

you have the power to build me up

and break me down-

even your absense affects me.

how can eight letters fill me with joy,

and then six months later,

break my heart?

your beauty, your allure

capture me, captivate me-

complete me; you put me under your spell.

but when you're gone, i lose my mind,

when you leave, only when you finally decide to give up on me-

i am alone, for you are the only thing that never leaves

Words can build us up, or words can tear us down. Start a fire in our hearts or put it out. Speak life. Speak life to the deadest darkest night. Speak life when there’s no sunshine and you don’t know why. Sticks and stones can break your bones but words can wound your soul. Do you have the ability to be kind? Everyone does. Our tongues are the greatest weapon and they can be used for damaging purposes. But, I have found that with Christ in my life, words can be used to encourage. The world is broken and so many are craving real love and acceptance. Jesus offers that. His love is sacrificial, because He went to the cross so we could be saved. His words are all full of truth and life- let your words also be the same. I promise your life will never be the same again, and that’s a good thing.

The word yes can save a life

The word no can end one.

A simple letter to a lover can fill their life with glee

A few evil words on the internet can wreck a person.

A simple hello can brighten the day

An single evil word can destroy a person's mood.

We must all remember that we are all human.

We all in some small way want to be approved of.

Beware the negative words you weave into the word.

For they can cause so much damage that you will never be able to undo.

A kind word is like a thread, easy to break,

but a mean one is like a titanium rod, almost impossible to destroy.

Lately, it’s hard to think of my words as powerful. Maybe coming from the right person, in the right context, they can be powerful. But in my experience; trying to tell healthcare workers over and over again what’s wrong, all the places it hurts, all the painful fatigue, how overwhelming it all is, those words often seem to fall on deaf ears.

I mean, sure, some of them listen, but as soon as they choose not to, it’s as if my words lose all value. All voice. Then, no matter how many times I say something, no matter how many different ways, no matter if I write it down or say it verbally, my words can’t seem to penetrate their jaded indifference.

My words feel powerless.

Words hurt, words heal. If you say them often enough they become real. Words can light the way or leave it darker than before. Words can heal the sick, or sicken the healthy.

"You're ugly" "you're fat" "where's mikey?" "Who's that?"

He's dead with a gun to his head his drunken voice slurrs "this is the power of words," Words hurt, words heal. If you say them often enough they become real.

Words are a soul’s soldiers;

Fighting the battles of your heart.

The war of life cannot be won without them.

They can tear the enemy apart;

They can give comrades the strength to go on.

But meaning is where words get their start.

A word’s true power is held in its meaning;

Though knowing the meaning doesn’t make you smart.

Without meaning, love and hate are the same burning feeling.

Random and made up

Lines with curves and swirls

Put in little rows and sectioned

In no particular order

But you wrote them

So they meant the most to me

in high school, my tennis coach had me play a match against the best singles player in the county. as I tossed serves, having them hit back to me with a precision that will break your heart, I knew I was supposed to lose. and that was okay - the adrenaline rush of merely playing against such talent was enough. when I left the court, my coach said, you did great. those words might have been fluff, but they probably weren't - I had won many points regardless of her finesse. I had won in some subtle, incredible way.

but words don't often wrap everything up in neat bow.

fast forward merely four years later. one of the first friends of mine who told me "I love you" is suffering. after she died, I walked around my college's town green, and sometimes, I still get stuck there. her words to me before she died: "if this doesn't work out, I don't know what I'm going to do" seemed like they already had an answer. had I missed the point, not paid enough attention to their meaning?

sometimes, I think words pay a penance after they are said. they become the loaded stuff of memories, a gun we were never taught how to use, now just smoking and empty of bullets. they are undoable. sometimes, I wonder if I could have said something, could have made one word sound more believable than pain.

maybe she would laugh now, say I'm being dramatic. maybe that's in the universe where she didn't have Bipolar Type I, the kind that decreases your life expectancy by ten years with an almost 20% mortality rate. maybe I'm remembering the words she told me before she died incorrectly. maybe all we have with words is hope that they aren't somehow skewed, or just shadows of the truth.

back to tennis. I felt my most powerful serving - what I was best at. I almost never lost. I had an almost perfect record, I was in varsity. but what if my memory doesn't 'serve' me?

what if the coach only told me I "did great" because he wanted me to feel better?

how do we ever really know what words really mean, if we could have done anything differently, something to stop them from playing a loop in our memories like old black and white films of the past?

words are almost always subjective.

indeed, whenever we use "he/she/I said" in our writing, perhaps we're trespassing into unspeakable territory. maybe we can never really relay what was actually said. we can never interpret it 100% correctly. memory doesn't always serve. the only thing we can really do is serve what we think to be match point.