I try not to panic when I see how words have taken me over. I know they come like rushing feral packs to chew into my vitals. I know how they come in tangles and twist around like vines incorporating clichés and force down my throat and partially digest and sometimes what emerges isn’t pretty.

And I see how they’re all my own doing, I I I, Me Me Me, and how I’m so full of myself, and I can see where it’s going, and I know enough about solipsism to know I don’t like it, don’t want to go there, want to escape.

And I see there’s no escape from words. I know the way I feel comes first, then words to let me know. I see them flying all around, dive bombing me, and I feel there’s no escape from myself because they’re always still me.

And it’s tyranny, I’m a prisoner of myself and only exist as words.

And I think and hope there must be some way out, some kind of escape.

And then I realize what I think and what I know. I’m not the only one with words. The solution’s very simple. Read other people’s words. They open me out before I take them in and they become mine by absorption. They keep me open. They exist independent of me, they open the door and let me escape into that larger world that’s there and always was.

Reading’s good.

I always knew that, and said so.

It lets me be me without being just me.

It lets me find the joy in otherness.

I can curl up in comfort, and purr, and drift off into sleep, perchance to dream, and know that I’ll wake up more better.

Thank you, words, for being there and showing me the way.

I can’t wait to fall asleep.