#stationery
I was given a gift
One cold January —
A blank sheet of paper,
Crisp stationery.
It lay there in silence,
Waiting for me —
Or someone far brighter,
A true visionary.
My visions were grand,
But never quite right.
Too scared to begin,
Afraid I might blight
The page with my pen.
So I sat there each night,
Just staring it down —
Wondering what I should write.
Years passed.
The page stayed bare.
So many lines
I never wrote.
So much of me
I never spoke.
And when, at last,
I touched the page
with trembling pen —
I wrote:
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒅
Jan 16
Jan 16, 2026 at 7:49 PM UTC
Red for economics,
green for English,
white for ICT
your files stacked in my hands,
pages filled with notes in your careful script
I never needed to ask; you just lent them
as if sharing knowledge meant sharing a part of you.
A classroom of seventeen,
but I only counted one.
I traced your desk with my fingertips,
opened your pencil case just to see
what colors you carried,
what secrets lived between the erasers and sharpies.
We worked in groups,
side by side but never quite close enough.
I stole glances when I thought you wouldn’t notice,
but maybe you always did.
Maybe that’s why you smiled so easily,
why you never pulled away.
Years have stretched between us,
but high school still lingers like a cozy
dream
I wake from too slowly.
Your files, your laughter, your presence in the last row
they live in me
as if time forgot to take them when it took you.
Mar 3, 2025
Mar 3, 2025 at 10:06 AM UTC
"life is tick boxes and notes.
i am guilty of loving stationery."
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021 at 8:02 AM UTC
My pen wore red, and scathed a struggling stroke
Black became it better, until feeble nib broke
Blue cried abiding stains, after much impatient rigour
Green was inconsolable, and pink was unconsidered
It was led who was left when all else lacked
That was until rouge eraser attacked
Is it a conscious activity of the precarious pen
To cease work as you require it again and again?
Jan 21, 2020
Jan 21, 2020 at 7:43 PM UTC
I am usually an amnesiac
Which is why there is always
cheap stationery in my pockets
- "An inexpensive set from Faber-Castell"
I look to my scribbles when I'm lost
unless an unexpected shower
has been tasked to ruin them
- "Pages stuck together, smudged and stained"
Three monsoons have come and went
I don't carry an umbrella or run for cover anymore
I stand in the middle of the downpour, drenched
But I guess some inks are just too hard to wash away
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 8:17 AM UTC
People on my paper
Taper
From my eraser
For I’m safer
Avoiding their paper cuts
In my lonely rut
As a homely nut
Who’s doors are shut
My notebook
Notes looks
To quote crooks
Who float hooks
To trick innocent fish
To do as they wish
Because I want bliss
I write down their list
Of how to make mist
Receipts
Of deceit
For defeat
At my feet
Are blank sheets
With no signature
Because I’m immature
And don’t admit I hurt
The world keeps turning
As textbooks are burning
So I’m incapable of learning
Why those who spurn me
Put me on gurneys
The stationery
Stated the scary
Apothecary
That makes us weary
Was the way to parry
The judges staring
At my pages tearing
From my burden bearing
Attempts at caring
But the judges became more imposing
My life they were hosing
Constantly nosing
Sympathy posing
Secretly hoping
A shotgun loading
Equaled my foreboding
Then through the papyrus
I saw your iris
Infecting virus
Distracting from the pain
Of the words on the page
Calming my rage
Like a sobering mage
But a paper ***
Playing God
Knowing odds
Said I’m flawed
Sending an origami
Tsunami
Upon me
With a piece of parchment
Showing where my heart went
How plainly evident
I wasn’t heaven sent
The text
Said ***
Was next
So I flexed
Which indexed
My intentions
As extensions
Of *** tension
My lousy excuse
Of a paper noose
That was obtuse
Cut you loose
After my poor example
Of a newspaper scandal
Making our fire burn ample
Incinerated our paper candle
I decide not to stay
Through this paper mache
Facsimile fray
Dominion grave
So a road I pave
With paper plates
For the wasteful fate
Of an empty slate
Through days I’m wading
Calendar fading
Ink degrading
The endless waiting
As my head is deflating
Because my construction paper
Always becomes obstruction vapor
So I become a substance faker
Loveless taker
Only when I finish my paper route
Will I see that my shameful doubt
Kept me out
Of record books
For I was shook
And my eraser took
The writing off the page
As I die of old age
Oct 25, 2018
Oct 25, 2018 at 5:45 PM UTC
The stationery was stationary,
When the train was standing still,
The stationery was no longer stationary,
When the train started up the hill,
The train was not now stationary,
And the stationery started sliding,
The train was moving fast,
And the pen no longer gliding,
On the now non stationary stationery,
That the pen was writing on,
The pen had suddenly abruptly stopped,
Now that the stationery had gone.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 5:21 AM UTC