This is an ongoing series of my poems which I love, but am unsure why
Libraries Remind me of Birthdays
I paid 25¢ for this ballpoint pen.
I bought it halfway up the library staircase at my old college from a pen vending machine.
It’s the only pen vending machine I’ve ever seen and it looks old.
I bought it cause I had 25¢ on me and I never had this pen before.
Not in the 3 years I saw it walking up and down these same stairs.
I want to write great, transcendent poems with it in cafés in Paris.
I want it to mean that college was grand and life is an adventure and this feeling I’m having right now is the only emotion I’ll ever need.
Bit it doesn’t.
It’s a non-descript green and brown-maroon pen with gold trim.
But it’s compact and fits my hand and makes me think the legacy of a pen or a college is in what you do beyond it.
When the ink is out or the pen is lost, what can you do with what remains, with the indent of a pen in an empty hand?