what is cliche if not a phrase that so perfectly encapsulates something that it becomes universal? what is an adverb if not a seed of a cliche, waiting? i get caught in them - in all the 'crying hysterically' and 'perfectly good' and 'threw her head back' and song lyrics taken as titles and people letting out a breath they didn't, y'know, know they were holding. my definition for this essay is horribly unsound from the strict definition sense - the cliche is one thing, the repetition another, the adverb indulgence third. but for me they all dovetail into the same thing: a well-rounded, well-worn word, especially in a language not your own, is:

• pleasing: there's something about its syllables that feels decadent, polished to a sheen, directed by gravity: say one word, and it will tug another after it. she cried, hysterically. she steepled her fingers. she squeezed her firsts. she took a breath. this movie was awesome; the writing course tells us it's an empty word, a poor writer's refuge, but it's also a word that does its job perfectly: this movie was awesome, it inspired awe, it filled one with the feeling of awe. this light was radiant. this grass was green. there's an echo of my own mostly suppressed echolalia here: if you hear a word, repeat it back - twist it a bit - add a second to it - complete. she fell backwards, her arms outstretched. he sighed deeply. i say, you say, he says, she says, it says, they say, we say. we say, i say: the breath we didn't know we were holding, goddammit. it's the inertia of pleasure and of completeness; and it compels.
• and also - when you're not quite sure of your own voice; when you're not quite sure, on some level you don't articulate to yourself for the longest time, that your voice is human - oh, what power the quotation holds over you! the stray line of poetry, the line from the book, the self-referential joke, the meme: what relief there is, to express yourself without giving yourself away even a little it, be it a social media post or an academic work. what danger there lurks in comitting to your own voice! how terrifying it is. i would find a perfect quote to articulate this point here, but maybe it's a bit on the nose even for me.
• but there's so much joy in those careful-uncareful quotes, too. sometimes i will find a title for the fic and go around turning it this way and that way, and it makes me happier than the fic itself. sometimes i wonder if every phrase can be turned into this kind of a polished piece of glass you found on the sea shore.
• (the cliche, of course, is conveying the specific - i saw this amazing cat - via the well-anonymous abstraction. there's curious safety to it.
• "the king of awful majesty," last phrase i stole from verdi's subitled *requiem* in the opera. hot damn. the king of awful majesty! the king in yellow have opened his tattered mantle, and here we go.

if you could pick out a cliche and make it fresh to you again - abstract to specific - what would it be?