28/05/2022
DICTIONARY DEFINITION
Oftentimes, the dictionary definition of a word isn't enough to capture how we exactly feel.
For example, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "memory" as:
- Something that is remembered.
And not:
- The thing that happened 4 years ago that permanently changed your life and doesn't allow you to sleep at night, in this particular night, this night so distant from the night that was 4 years ago.
"What are you exactly?" you ask the memory. It didn't answer.
"A ghost?" you ask again.
It answered but its answer didn't clear things up because the memory said, "I don't know either, really. What I am is up to you to decide."
"So you can be real here in front of me?" you ask.
"No," answers the memory, "I'm just a memory. Make me anything you want as long as it's not real."
Merriam-Webster also defines "breakup" as:
- To end a romance.
- To cease to exist as a unified whole.
And not as:
- There was no romance, to begin with. The two of you were longtime friends who suddenly started hooking up until one of you asks, "What are we, really?"
"I don't know, really."
- There was no "unified whole" in the first place. Because the truth is, you were both broken the moment the two of you met.
It was at a pool party where the two of you are submerged, not in chlorine-cleaned water, but in cheap brandy.
"I think that no one would ever love me again," he drunkenly whines at you.
"Don't think that way, Evan."
"Why not, Claire?"
"Because you look good. Someone like you is irresistible."
"Yeah, an irresistible guy who's been cheated on."
"Well, I've been cheated on, too."
There was silence.
Then there was Evan's breath, which smells of cheap brandy, on your neck. That was the end of your friendship with Evan and the start of something unclear. Maybe your friendship was the "unified whole," the two of you broke up the moment you made-out.
Merriam-Webster lastly defines "déjà vu as:
- The illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time.
And not as:
- The similar pain you've felt when Evan cheated on you, too, just like Carlo, your ex-boyfriend. It is in that moment you've learned that you could feel something as if you've felt it for the first time. "I thought it would be less painful the second time it happened," you thought. But it's just the same, or maybe, it's actually more painful.
- Oftentimes, the dictionary definition of a word isn't enough to capture how we exactly feel. For example, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "memory" as: "Something that is remembered." You've read this before, you know you've been here before, your memory tells you. You trust your memory. Your memory teaches you. And maybe that's the one thing Merriam-Webster got right when defining words. It also defines memory as "The power or process of remembering what has been learned." You have the power, you'll learn.
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Dictionary Definitions
I'll Just Word Instead, 2021
For poetry and random written contants
