Life in pencil

A girl buys a diary, she says it's for 'notes'

     She buys a pen, 0.7mm nib

 

A few tears, now the diary's in her lap, huddled

In the corner of the stain-mottled deck

     terrified of words

          that cannot one day be erased.

 

Unexpected panic, thoughts encased in a steel sphere

     diary falls to deck

frantic rummaging of drawers, through cabinets

     amongst burnt orange gypsy skirts

 

Sharpens her quarry with a blunt utensil

 

On the deck again, in the corner

     terror subsides

     abstract phrases clustered  in  myelinated neurons

     forced uncomfortably into words

 

                                                        (who's ever gonna read this anyway?)

 

     words that can, now, one day be erased

          but they won't be.