By Aya Riseman, TIWP Student

I used to play on the floor with plastic letters. At a time when the world was meaningless and I had nothing important to do, I played. The time I spent, the time I wasted, it didn’t matter. 

Back then, the letters were just colors and shapes. I would drop them from my hands, watching as they clattered onto the floor and bounced just a little before resting. My mother would come in and laugh, watching me push the letters around without a care in the world. 

Then one day, instead of watching me, my parents started playing with me. They held up my letters and asked what sound they made. “Ahh” for a, “ehh” for e. They brought me picture books and helped me read them. I would look at the drawings, but they told me to focus on the words, and try to sound them out. I realized I wasn’t playing, I was learning. But I wanted to learn, wanted to have the power that adults had to type and speak and write. I sounded out the words, sometimes forgetting to look at the pictures. And my plastic letters were shoved into a box, collecting dust.

As I got older, I started to realize words had meaning. A stop sign meant stop, and when I sounded out the word cat, I would picture a cat. Words weren’t just sounds people made, they were directions, commands, that helped people understand the world. 

Over time, words became heavier. My dad telling me to be polite when friends were over, or my teacher yelling at the class to be quiet. I missed my colorful plastic blocks, the letters that had no meaning, and couldn’t yell or silence me from anything. 

Now I sit in my room after school, typing or texting or getting work done. And although I have the power I had always wanted, I wonder if it was worth it. Words used to be light, meaningless, colorful shapes. Now they are expectations, rules, responsibilities. But what else is there to do other than keep typing, keep speaking, and hope that one day, my words will feel light again.