Drowning in Ink

I have journals everywhere.

Some are stacked on shelves.
Some are hidden inside drawers.
Some I have carried with me for years
without opening.

Every once in a while,
I pull one out
and read a few pages.

Sometimes I recognize the handwriting
before I recognize the person.

I know I wrote it.

I know where I was living.
I know what was happening.
I know the names.

But I read the words
and wonder,

What mental state was I in
to write this?

The thoughts contradict each other.

One sentence believes something.
The next one destroys it.

Nothing stays true
for very long.

The language is abstract,
conflicting,
irrational—

as though the words
were dropped from the sky
and I spent entire pages
trying to arrange them
into a life.

Sometimes, honestly,
it makes no sense at all.

I used to think
that kind of writing
was profound.

Maybe some of it was.

But some of it
was simply confusion
given a pen.

And sometimes
I feel sorry for her.

I look at the handwriting,
the words pressed too deeply
into the paper,
the sentences running
into one another,

and I almost want
to reach through the years
and hug myself.

It is surreal
to feel tenderness
for someone
who is still you,

but no longer exists.

Back then,
I never imagined
I would see myself differently.

I thought the way I felt
was permanent.

I thought every thought
was the truth.

I could not imagine
that one day
I would open those journals
and read them
from the other side.

That was a different stage
of my life.

I understand that now.

Every stage asks us
to become someone
we cannot yet recognize.

And maybe the purpose
is not to erase
who we were,

but to look back,
recognize her,
forgive her,

and keep moving.

Sometimes I want to tell her
that she will not always
feel this way.

That one day
she will read these pages
without falling back into them.

That healing will happen
so quietly
she may not notice it
until years later,

when she opens an old notebook
and realizes
she is reading the words
of someone she once was,

someone she still loves,

but no longer has to be.

She would not believe me.

Back then,
I could not see beyond
the next sentence.

I kept writing
because I thought
the words might save me.

But the more I wrote,
the further I disappeared.

I was not writing
my way out.

I was drowning in ink.