A Poem by Jennifer Fauci

How to Kill a Word

First think of a plan to get rid of them.

Those words,
those sounds,

those syllables.

Letters strung together.
Crawling up my throat like vomit.

Next, crumple them up

and tear them to shreds.
Annihilate the lyrics in music,
cross out the markings on warning signs,
tear apart the ingredients on candy wrappers.
Words. They infest my body like a foreign disease.

Then, set them on fire and

watch them blaze and burn.
Some words are complex eyesores impossible to pronounce.
Some are too fancy even for Shakespeare.
Others are meant for crayons.
Break them like you did my heart.

Finally, throw them in the ocean.

Let those words become soggy and watch them drown.
Swirling around my head like a vortex of pain.
Stop haunting me.



Jennifer Fauci graduated from Adelphi University with a degree in English Literature and Communications. She writes poetry, children’s stories and YA fiction. Her freelance work can be seen in Newsday, The Patch.com and The Latin Kitchen. She has a passion for travel, creative writing and loves anything British. She currently lives and writes on Long Island, NY