I'd give you the moon if I could afford it

Words. Powerful little buggers, which can build up or break down empires. Words can be infinitely beautiful and beautifully infinite in the way in which they capture the essence of the world we live in. My close friend, Ashleigh, recently wrote an absolutely beautiful blog post  about the power and magic of words.

“Magic”. I think that was the prefect word to use in this case. Ashleigh and I were procrastinating together the other day and we stumbled upon a bunch of amazing spoken word poets on Youtube. (See Youtube isn’t just for cat videos!) By the quiet in the room it was clear to me just how nerdy for words Ashes and I were.

Even as I am writing this it’s clear that these words used to be just scribblings on a page, but now, through years of literary development, they contain meaning. The words “sorrow” used to be nothing and it became a way to explain a deep sadness, a loss; something so much more than a simple, six-letter word. I guess that’s why I like spoken word poetry. I can’t really say why a word or a phrase touches me, but for that brief moment those words connected to something I knew I felt, but could never express.

For example the poem “Not a love poem” by Martin Ingle- known by his Youtube name, Bread and Bullfights.

It makes no sense to me rationally why the words of an awkward Australian boy my age would speak to me, but they do. The words speak to me, because I have felt the emotions that Martin describes. It’s more than just understanding that it’s not a poem about love. It’s about grasping the fact that here is a person speaking to Love as if it were a person. Every word of the poem was picked, because it creates feeling and emotion. Words can do that. Words can touch things within us that we can’t understand, but can relate to in another person. Words create that common connection between us.

“I’d give you the moon if I could afford it, but my words will have to do instead.”