I know that a spoken work can change reality

Announce at a kitchen table that you're going to leave the job, and the thing changes state. Ten seconds earlier it was weather moving around inside your head. Now it's out on the table with somebody looking at you, and it has a date attached whether you wanted one or not.

This cuts both ways, which is why it matters. The cruel thing said in a row lands somewhere and stays landed.

So does the kind thing, the one you assumed the other person already knew and therefore never said.

Speech is the one part of the inner life that leaves the building, and it's the part you get some say over.