untitled

the people that you care about the most

will always let you down

the people that you care about the most

will always let you down

so stop caring

the journal.

so i woke up this morning

to a most familiar voice

telling me he's downstairs

with a belated birthday gift.

so i hop out of bed

[turn my swag on]

and greet him in my slippers 

he hands me a beautiful journal

full of empty pages

except a note from him in the very front

full of silly jokes

and words of encouragement 

to keep writing.

and for years i have shied away from 

real live tangible journals in fear that

they would get in the wrong hands or

someone would blackmail me or

one day

i'd look back

and see the pain on every page

and know that this paragraph

on february 18, 2009 

is jumbled and unreadable because

i was sitting on my bed

mascara running, gasping for breath

sobbing.

but after he left i looked at

and held up this

brown and gold bound up

gift from one writer to another

and i sat down at my desk

and carefully and painstakingly

thought out loud

and to my surprise

the words found their places

on the page