a name on a screen, stared at with a confused elation. a name once spoken more frequently than my own, now locked away. like a word whose meaning i've forgotten. a word once used more than any other. my favorite word. like one discovered in a brilliant piece of writing and lovingly incorporated into my vocabulary, interjected at any possible opening. a word whose meaning i thought i knew, and so used confidently. and then it was as if i was corrected, shown that the word was not what i had so fervently believed it to be. and suddenly this word lost its weight, appeared strange and hollow and other. the word's true meaning revealed in some criticism, one that left me humiliated by my own ignorance. a word i vowed to never use again. and for years i continued speaking, never using this word to emphasize what i had believed it to mean or what i had discovered it had actually meant. and there were other words in its place, but never any that described so accurately, that felt so right rolling over my tongue and sliding across my lips. and slowly the memory of the word, with its duality-- specific to my heart and mind, and its confusion faded from my pallet. and now appearing before me, a blank ardor fills me.