Echo's Last Stand

For the past six years of my life, I have been paid either to write, or to teach writing. Sometimes both.

And though I think most times I'm a decent communicator — both in writing and in speech — the fact remains that there are some situations that no words can resolve.

You feel them there — swimming around your brain, and settling into a knot in your throat — before you choke them back, resigning them to their futility.

You have learned, you think. You know better.

Nothing can change what has happened, and nothing you say — or do — will help to sway your future.

And so the words just... slip away. You clench your jaw, and maybe your fists.

You drag your thumb along the knuckles and wonder just how many years remain before your hands cease to open and close so freely.

Time is — in fact — the enemy. And you have already wasted so much.

And yet, still, there you are:

Standing. And staring.

With nothing left to say.

And yet: everything.