It’s hard for me to conceive a more endearing word than this. It’s just as hard for me to convey the emotions and memories that it provokes. Being a logophile, paired with my own distinctive brand of compulsive psychosis means that words have always been more than just words – more than the ink stains on paper. More than odd sounds shaped by lips and tongues into proper vernacular. Certain words bring me sheer terror, just as others make me fall head-over-heels in love.
There are certain words that are closer to my soul than any past love. I hardly remember my first kiss, and yet I still remember the exact moment I stumbled on this word. I was 11 years old and thumbing through an old magazine I found laying in an advertisement for a computer game.
Since that moment 19 years ago, there are no better words than this one. If I write in it black ink in one of my notepads and step back, the letters seem to lay perfectly next to each other like exhausted lovers after feverish sex. The tail of each letter drapes softly across the shoulder of the one following it.
To say this word is to take me far, far away. It’s to rest my head in an open field with a calm, orange glow from the tired sun laying down along the horizon for the night.
It’s gentle and intriguing. It’s dark, mysterious and sexy. Bold and euphoric. It’s intangible.
Phantasmagoria….
That’s a good fucking word.