When my words

When my words aren't mine anymore I am lost
the letters don't link up
and the phrases drop into a paragraph below
and I feel like I never learned to read.

My eyes see a word,and I think,
"that's mine." My Word.

In the hands of someone else.

On a page that belongs to someone else.

And so, on and on it goes-- writing, rearranging, writing, back to the drawing board, scratching, clawing, rubbing my temples, deleting, pasting, retrieving...

...all for someone else.

And in the end? The Reward?

Completion.
I finished something.
It will be attached to a name belonging to someone else
a bank account belonging to someone else...

But it's my pile of words -- all messed up and thrown away or stepped on or pushed into a corner, or put first (when they were intended to be last)--coffee stains, wine stains, mis-spelled and wrong-- my words.

And as of today,
I'll Own Them.