The Blank Journal

I sit down every day
To write a few lines
About the weather and the sky,
About the strangers driving on the road,
About the stone cold tea,
About you.

I sit down and I open my blank journal
Whose stark pages hold more stories than my mind could ever store,
Of the morning mist that blinds your senses,
Of the crippled boy begging at the corner street,
Of the algae growing on the left-over food,
Of us.

I slowly run my hand over a fresh, crispy sheet
And begin to scribe the torrent of emotions
That drown me when I think of you, and us.
The cacophony of our muffled whispers
Echoes in the unending silence that we dwell in.
The magnetic tension between us
Explodes in the exotic spaces that we tread,
Even when we are sitting a foot apart,
Trying not to become mere puppets
To the psychedelic tune enslaving our better senses.
There is so much that my journal can hold in its bosom,
And safeguard my secrets,
Without showing any signs of having a throbbing heart of its own.

I look up and find you
Staring at the spotless sheet,
With a baffled yet compelling look in your eyes,
As if you are silently but fervently praying
To invoke the seemingly lifeless mass of virgin sheets,
To rise up and reveal
Every tale that I narrated,
Every verse that I recited.

Our eyes meet and I know
That I have been compromised;
My faithful journal has given me away,
Laying my soul bare and vulnerable…
‘How could you betray me?’, I admonish my philandering confidant
And brace myself to face my worst fears
As I turn to behold you with an unwavering graze.
‘What did you see?’, I ask.
‘Your eyes.’ Was all that you said.