I volunteer my words, signed: “war-time writer” —
Though, I grew up in a tranquil nursery.
To be more accurate:
As eloquent as I’m capable,
I gleefully hammer-down ink impresses,
lopsided, with all hard consonants —
I prefer stories on the mal-palpable,
The excruciating,
The long lost and forever,
The castigates’ endeavors,
The introspect of interrogatories,
The dread of crippling anxiety,
Not all that often,
Though it does tend to happen,
To find my head is turned toward the joyful.
My journal and I don’t speak, those pages hold horrors,
my joy knows this so-to avoids them.
My pen and I always carry on,
We playfully choose instead to draw eyes,
As many eyes as the printer paper see’s,
In all of those eyes,
My pen remembers,
That —
All those “I’s,” I look past,
Drawn and staring —
All eyes on me.

© Betty B. Goodman