One time my brother gave me this moleskine, right? And he told me to not waste another second not writing down my thoughts. He told me that all of the answers I needed were in that moleskine, and that all I had to do was to write them out and search through them. So I took his advice and began writing as soon as he left the parking lot of the Barnes and Nobles. It took me a year to finish that journal. But it taught me that it’s ok to write things down; things that make you look weak or strange or like a total dick. It taught me that listening to myself is harder than I thought, and that sometimes all it takes is writing out exactly how you’re feeling to understand what you need, don’t need, want, and don’t want.
The ink looked great on all of those acid-free pages. It felt relieving, like my wrists had opened up and all of the ink and blood and dark grey brain matter was pumping down my palms, onto my fingertips, and smearing all over the pages. I’d scribble a page and lift my hand up and there’d be all of my thoughts and words, my typewriter fingers leaving blanks and creases where my letters were cracking or pounded too hard. Where my emotions or thoughts felt a little too needy and slammed themselves into the pages like a car into a guardrail. The remnants fleeing the fires, smearing as I slid my palm across the cluttered page, checking to see if the ink was dry.
