I was born blank
a silence so wide it could swallow your name
before it ever left your mouth.
But then you came.
With shaking hands,
and ink that bled like memory.
You never introduced yourself.
Didn’t need to.
I knew you.
From the pauses between your lines,
from the weight of what you never wrote.
I felt you in every crossed-out word,
each accidental truth that spilled
before you could censor it.
They call me tool.
Instrument.
Stationery.
But I am anything but still.
Each stroke a confession,
each sentence a scream you whispered to me
because the world was too loud
or too cruel
to hear it.
I’ve tasted apologies
you couldn’t speak aloud.
Fantasies you’d never live.
Rage you feared would ruin you.
And love… so much love…
it shook my spine
as the ink curved its soft syllables
like a lovers name
spoken at a funeral.
I am the graveyard
of every version of you
you tried to bury.
I am the echo
of all the things
you dared to say
only when no one was listening.
Still,
you leave me in drawers,
drop me in bags,
forget me for months
until sorrow brings you back.
And I never mind.
I never mind.
Because I don’t need your thanks…
just your truth.
And when your hand trembles again,
I’ll be ready.
To carry the weight
you can’t bear alone.
To bleed,
so you don’t have to.
This poem gives voice to the quiet objects we use to express ourselves. Pens, papers, journals. Often overlooked, they witness our rawest moments. Grief, love, regret, and truth. This poem imagines their thoughts and feelings as they carry what we cannot say aloud, revealing that while we hold them in our hands, they are the ones truly holding us.
