I need a journal that invites me.
This notebook isn’t it.
Steel-spine helix,
gloss-black cover,
generic collegiate,
regulation three-hole punch,
narrow blue lines,
thirty-seven to a page,
vertical left margin,
authoritarian red.
Cold, clinical,
better for chemistry notes
than poetry.

Give me a journal.
A sensual tome,
cloth cover, or better yet,
leatherette,
something my fingers can caress,
and stiff-rag, off-white,
naturally nubby pages,
the kind that courts a fountain pen.
A book I can’t wait to come home to,
that spreads its paper wings wide,
and breathes in my ear,
“Come on in, big boy.
Fill me up.”

01/16/2002

Posted on 01/16/2002
Copyright © 2025 Bruce W Niedt