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Recently I started naming things that are dead to me, and this is a source of control. For me, at least. It helps to categorise things meditatively, remembering the lines and angles that demarcate the past from the present. Words create angles. 'Whoosh' is a word, and so is 'rocket'. What isn't a word? We cannot escape words. We can, however, use words suspiciously because they are vectors for something transcendental — a connection, a relation — and are therefore amenable to deceit. We can also use words with the faith that they summon the same meaning for others as they do for us. We can also use words to safeguard our subjectivity, to protect ourselves being lost to abstraction. At times a word is a lens, a prism, a mirror, a pool of water. Sometimes a word is a stone. I use words to represent, to hide, to reveal, to weaponise, to make violent. You can take my words and put them on a shelf, or keep them in your pocket. You can forget about them in the laundry, and shake your head in deprecation of your absentmindedness when the words bloom all over your shirt, and when, weeks later, you find their pulp still sticky and mad with abortiveness.