For as long as I can remember I’ve been staring at an empty page.
It glares back at me blankly as if to say nothing,
but there is no language as universal as its silence.
No better way to quell a pens potential than to juck oppose
its ink to the white walls where it is told, home is to be found.
The opposite of everything its ever been.

Im trying to explain potential to a trembling pen, but I don’t know where to start.
It is 5AM, my page is still empty.
There is something hostile about the stiffness of its margins,
familiar as the space between school bells as the expectations of strangers.
It has been this way for so long that my pen is convince of inklessness.

Its mouth is running dry,
its knees are trembling,
it is angry,
I can’t blame it.

I want to tell it that this paper is not an enemy, but I am not so sure if thats true.
Because i’ve been here enough times to recognize the subtle venom of white walls.
and in truth there is little accidently in the way its learn to hate expectations,
to sniff out their animosity, to run from them.
There is a few limits on what a pen can do in empty pages.

build, and destroy
move and stay still
mostly they can make mistakes,
they cannot erase them.

I struggle to find the words to explain that they cannot fight back in battles they fled from.
That they are not meant to feel so empty on accident.
Its 5 AM and my page is still empty I cannot find a moral worth writing.
There is no space in what needs to be said in its margins,
but there is nothing to lose in trying.
There is everything to lose in absence.