Little words, and the absence of, change whole meanings, whole days, whole worlds. Tipped like placid scenes in snow globes from despondent tapping. Their meanings are seldom derived from their plain usage, but we assign them such severity. Little words, or the absence of, separate us from the tethers of sanity.

And that’s because little words take deep root in feelings we did not know were ripe for colonization. When little words tug to and fro on the fringes of meaning, their roots are yanked and displaced from their tender earth. Suddenly little words have so much sway over the trajectory of a day because the stakes became higher the longer we let them linger.

Let them visit a while, introduce yourself to them without consequence, and then let them float elsewhere to be what they always would have been. In the end, little words are just that. Poor examples of the menagerie of things that cannot be committed to language. Lampposts of our sensitivities, upon which their meager light cannot adequately cast its glow on the many unseen things.

Little words, or the absence of, end up meaning very little in the context of things that go unsaid.