I have always loved words, they are my favorite part of life. To me lyrics are the best part of a song, conversations the best part of a relationship and the caption the best part of a picture. I am not one of those people who can express thoughts and ideas through drawings and music. I feel satisfied, or giddy and even exhausted. Loose letters are as inviting as a box of crayons and some crispy white paper.
They yield fantasy magic in the real world, magic we are so used to that we tend to overlook. A combination of letters can make you sad, can make you smile, can make you think, just like any spell would. Harry Potter has imperio, and scourgify and the jelly-leg jinx. But don't commands like go and come, make us do things? Words like sorry and regret can sometimes clean up the situation better than any mop. And doesn't "I love you" coming from a powerful enough caster do the same thing to your legs?
Just like spells, words themselves only hold half of their power. The actual magic has to come from the person. Which is why I have cultivated for a long time the little habit of collecting them. Once I've collected it that word is mine, and mine alone. Nobody else can steal its meaning, nobody else can use it to hurt me. It might have been a self defense mechanism created by my young brain against bullies and dementors alike. Words like fat, and bitch, and slut are mine. I've heard them so many times I've decided to collect them. Now that they are mine they have no effect on me. I will use it so often it will lose it's meaning, it will lose it's power. Gay at one point meant happy, and after years and years of over use it has become synonymous to homosexual. And each of my words are being molded by me, one at a time to mean something else.
The spell fat has lost it's power to make me cry. Bitch is not the right curse for making me angry, and slut doesn't intimidate me anymore. I've taken to challenging my boggarts to come up with cleverer disguises, to insult me in newer and more imaginative ways. To supply me with new and more polished words and make my collection, and myself in return, grow with each addition. And they have to, because the thought of somebody using one of my own words against me it's simply riddikulus
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.
In response to this blog post by Elizabeth Fierro, on the HPA blog.
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