I once knew a girl,
A girl who loved to write,
she'd write poems, books, anything.

She's loved to write,
soon though she realized she wasn't a good writer,
so she started writing in red.
Red ink on the page,
the page that was her wrist,
her thighs,
her stomach.

I miss the girl who wouldn't write in red.

I’d rather write than speak
My pen is always responsive
My ink doesn’t judge my mistakes
My paper doesn’t argue
My lines never cross me
My sentences never disappoint
And my words will never leave me

I would rather type your name
than write it.

Erasing it doesn't take make it disappear completely.
your name with the pencil that's only slightly faded,
pen or marker that's scratched
underneath it all,
your name still sticks.

Typing your name
I press delete and it's gone.
a tap of the backspace and it's gone.

If I had to be completely honest
typed or written
is your name
really gone?

If pen and paper should serve as sword and shield.
I would willfully wound those
with lashing tongues
as a knight to those without ink.

I would pass down my pen
through generations
filling countless books
with bitter truths.

I would tell a thousand stories
of beauty and wonder
in my written world

and mend mind and soul
in cursive letters to my loved ones.
that only they can read.

But a pen is a double sided sword
that writes in fading letters
leaving space to fill false truths

What of the history
in languages lost long ago
that’s rewritten by the victors ?

And the books burned because of ignorance?

Propaganda and lies
Spread
like plagues in our history books.

The pages become stained
by the blood of those written out.

So when we pick up our pen
and write to make others bleed
they do bleed ,
nearly as much as the hand we write with

-M.O.I