They're just words

Words; when put together, they create sentences. Those then turn into paragraphs which make pages; pages then turn into books. They can grab your attention from the get go, lull you in slow or turn you off completely with just one. They put you on a roller coaster of emotion. The rise of enjoyment, laughter and happiness; the fall of sorrow, pain and anguish, throwing loops in there to see if you get confused or forgetful.

They can lash out and cut deep, deeper than a knife or a sword. They can heal, heal better than any surgery or kiss from a loved one. They can make everything disappear or bring everything bubbling to the surface. They can make your blood run cold with fear or boil with rage. They can make you feel the sadness that consumes the lead or utter joy that overwhelms a backup. Anything and everything under the sun can be felt with the right choices of words.

She might wound him, she might lie to him, and still he would do anything to hear one word of kindness from her lips, to feel his flesh touch her flesh without humiliation. He was willing to take the chance. And all this because she had stepped from the train with a small scarlet bird in a cage, and she was coming home to him, bringing a fluttering life. He was at last waiting for someone whose name was known to him. People saw her come home to him, people in his town. She smiled at him, and he knew then that he would die for her. From the New York Times Bestselling Book A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

Willow remembers the last time that she saw him cry, how shocked she had been, frightened almost, to see him reduced to such a state. She is not so much scared now as awed. Impressed, as she had not been that other time, by how strong he must be in order to withstand such misery. She knows better than anyone what kind of inner fortitude it must take to let oneself be so overcome.
it is something that she will never be able to do. Even to watch it without allowing herself the luxury of cutting is almost more than she can bear.
His sobs wound her far more than anything she can inflict on herself, but it is not only pain that she feels as she watches him. She takes a bittersweet comfort in the fact that her brother is capable of feeling such grief. That he will never have to resort to the kind of remedy that she does, that he has an endless reservoir of strength that allows him to weep in such a fashion. From the book Willow by Julia Hoban.

The cellist opens his eyes. The sadness she saw in his face is gone. She doesn't know where it went. His arms rise, and his left hand grips the neck of the cello, his right guides the bow to its throat. It is the ost beautiful thing she has ever seen. When the first notes sound they are, to her, inaudible. Sound has vanished from the world.
She leans back into the wall. She's no longer there. Her mother is lifting her up, spinning her around and laughing. The warm tongue of a dog licks her arm. There's a rush of air as a snowball flies past her face. She slips on someone else's blood and lands on her side, a severed arm almost touching her nose. In a movie theater, a boy she likes kisses her and puts his hand on her stomach. She exhales, and pulls the trigger.
Then sound returns to the world. From The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway.

Words that drew me in, made me almost forget the unimportant day to day things, helped me focus on anything other than my internal pain. This is why I read. They help me forget...