Murder by the Name

The moment we put a label on something
we conceal its wholeness
and shrink its aliveness.

To name something is a violent action.
It reduces the thing to an essence
and risks killing it in the process.

To love is to peer beyond
the horizon defined by the name,
and not mistake the story for the truth.

But seeing is not an innocent action either.
Our eyes are not like a camera taking pictures
but more like hands and fingers.

They grab on to things,
they select things,
they ignore the rest.

Seeing is a brutal act as well.
We are violent creatures
by our very nature.

We reduce, we extract, we consume
and attempt to control what’s left,
which is nothing but a shadow.

To love is to go beyond the comfort of the name,
to refuse the satisfaction of knowing,
to observe and to let it continue unfolding.

To live in painful contradiction.
To suffer the silent dissonance.
To learn to feel joy without a story.

My love is loss.
I am a writer. I kill things.
Hoping awe survives my words.