I AGONIZE OVER WORDS. IT’S MY JOB.

I agonize over words. It’s my job.

As a ghostwriter, I write pieces that embody the ideas and personalities of someone else.

Each word you attach to the next builds your personality: how others perceive you; how you choose to verbalize who you are.

Words matter.

You become the difference between:

Thank you kind, sir, and

Thank you.

The difference between:

What the fuck did you just say, and

Can you explain that one more time?

The difference between:

I’m so dense, and

I’m so stupid.

Your words chisel your personality into our world.

But I find myself lost in words to know who I am.

In Spanish,

I’m a different kind of confident.

I’m a different kind of insecure.

I’m a different kind of comedy.

I don’t have the words to be a carbon copy of my English-speaking self.

I’m different.

But it’s still me, verdad?

There has to be something continuous underneath it all, verdad?

In English,

My entire world is limited by my words.

I am who I am to others from my words.

I am who I am to myself from my words.

But it’s me …

… seasoned with wit, anxiety, charm, flirtatiousness, grace, resentment, humility, bitchiness, and contentment, sometimes stale in Spanish and easily over-medicated in English.

But it’s me …

… buried beneath the layers of cultural conditioning, pop culture references, and phrases creased in my English mind that slip through the cracks to my Spanish tongue.

But it’s me …

… sleeping in the silence, residing underneath the hard-wired whiteout of my mind, a person I will never find all the words for.