Stop!

When I write “stop,”

all four letters are uniform,

a nondescript word on a page.

Nothing to tell the reader

to halt, much less pause

while perusing the sentence

that holds my verb.

But when she writes “stop,”

her letters jump off the page.

They pulsate and stretch

and scream at the reader

to put on the brakes

and ponder the context

of the surrounding words.

Her “stop” is laden with trauma:

perhaps from her own life,

or an empathy beyond words.

I only wish that my “stop”

had an ounce or two

of her vibrant writing

that makes words alive.