Connotation Burns Into My Lexicon

What flies the lips, yet tarries in the heart...

Hit Play. The music will carry the weight of the words more deeply.

A word is not a word alone,
It echoes deep, it carves the bone.
A fleeting breath, yet forged in flame,
It leaves behind more than its name.

Each phrase a dagger cloaked in song,
It strikes the heart and lingers long.
The sound may fade, the voice be gone,
Connotation burns into my lexicon.

The velvet tongue may bless or curse,
May crown a king or fill a hearse.
What seems so pure, so bright, so fair,
Holds meanings tangled, dark, aware.

“Love” may disguise a broken chain,
“Peace” may conceal a silent pain.
What we believe is clear, is not…
Each word bears more than it was taught.

The lexicon within my chest,
Knows words are lies at their best.
Their double lives, their secret art,
They pierce the mind, they brand the heart.

O cruel disguise! O mask of tone!
That speaks of warmth, yet chills the bone.
That whispers joy, yet hides despair,
That leaves its shadows everywhere.

No truth survives unscarred, intact,
For words are riddles dressed as fact.
They cut, they heal, they shape, they bind,
They haunt the chambers of the mind.

And when I speak, I’m not alone,
For ghosts of meaning guard the throne.
Each syllable, though swift, once born,
Returns as night, returns as storm.

So write my fate in flame, not ink,
For every phrase rewires how I think.
The soul is bent, the flesh is drawn…
Connotation burns into my lexicon.

And when at last my breath is still,
And silence crowns the final will,
The echoes left will carry on…
Connotation burns into my lexicon.

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”
— Mother Teresa

🎵 : 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley
- Released under CC-BY 4.0
www.scottbuckley.com.au