“To hell with the world.” You’d said-
I’d told you that I don’t trust it to hold my writing gently,
Though it’s never been the world so much as the people who were once in mine.
You said it like a rebellion-
like the world is something to fight but I’ve never feared the world;
It’s never read me closely enough to hurt me.
It was always the ones who knew where to look,
The ones who handled my words like they were disposable.
So I learned to keep them quiet.
I folded them into notebooks,
hid them in drafts or tucked them into my mind where no one would ever see.
You never reach for them like that-
You don’t tear them open or ask for more than I’m ready to give.
You stay and handle them with care and somehow that’s enough to make me write again.
Poems hold secrets but books hold more;
Mine will soon be displayed on every bookstore shelf so-
To hell with the world.
It’s just me and you and the pen.
