Letting Words be Ordinary

There is a subtle moment that arrives after clarity settles,
when the words begin to feel heavier than what they’re trying to carry.

Not because they are wrong,
but because they are watched too closely.

I notice this when I start wondering what a sentence might do once it leaves me.

Whether it will help.
Whether it will land.
Whether it might be misunderstood, misused,
or taken as something more than it is.

That’s usually when the words stop being ordinary.

They begin to acquire responsibility.
They lean forward.
They try to prevent something.

I’m learning to notice that shift and pause.

Not to correct it,
but to release it.

Words don’t need to arrive with intention attached.
They don’t need to improve anything.
They don’t need to guide, reassure,
or clarify in advance.

They can simply be said.

There was a time when I believed careful language was a form of care.
And sometimes it is.

But sometimes care becomes management.
And management quietly replaces presence.

What feels truer now
is letting language remain proportional
to the moment it arises from.

Letting it stay close to lived experience.
Letting it be partial, incomplete,
and unprotected.

Ordinary words don’t announce themselves.
They don’t position the speaker.
They don’t try to be useful.

They move, or they don’t.
They settle, or they pass.

When I allow words to be ordinary,
something else relaxes with them.

The need to be understood.
The impulse to be precise enough to prevent error.
The quiet hope that what I say might make something happen.

This isn’t indifference.

It’s trust in the space between speaking and reception.

I don’t know what words will do once they leave me.
I don’t think I ever did.

What I know
is how it feels to speak
when they are no longer burdened with outcome.

There’s less urgency.
Less self-monitoring.
More room for silence around them.

They return to being what they were
before I asked them to carry anything:

sounds shaped by experience,
offered without instruction,
released without claim.

Letting words be ordinary
doesn’t make them weaker.

It makes them more human.

And for now,
that feels like enough.