1 in the morning,
And my eyes won’t slumber.
The caffeine in my veins keeps my conscious brain flowing.
And when all else fails, I end up here,
A blank word document waiting to be filled
With some sort of story,
or some sort of feeling,
or some sort of ground-breaking thought.
But tonight I have no great words to say.
Just that I feel safe in this place.
And I think, maybe, I enjoy being alone a bit much,
Where I don’t feel the pressure to live up to any expectation,
Where I don’t have to feel distraught
or sad
or helpless
or frail,
Where there’s no one to impress,
Where there’s no one to hurt,
Where there’s no one that I’ll allow to hurt me.
It’s me,
and me alone,
It’s all I need,
A place to be blank.

I find in my writing
I become naked and vulnerable.
Strip me of pretty words and clever phrases.
See beyond the rhymes, alliterations, and metaphors.
It is in my writing that I discover who I am,
who I once was,
and who I could be.
But tonight?
I just want to be blank,
to allow myself to forget all that I’ve done
and start from a place where no one knows me.
Tonight I want to meet the world for the first time.
Not to begin anew, but to simply begin.

This is where I say goodbye,
And this is where I say hello.