Throw it on the fire

I have a little red journal I carry around with me wherever I go. Inside it are words that describe in detail things that I have never been able to speak about, painful memories that taint me, no matter how much I pretend they are not there. And it seems no matter what I do I can't get rid of them. I can't pray them away, I can't talk them away, and I can't ignore them. They sneak up when I least expect them and pull me back down until I feel I am drowning in them all over again. So now, when I feel them breathing down my neck- I write. I write until my fingers hurt and my arm cramps up. I write down every last detail that I can remember and as I do I feel hot tears running down my cheeks and landing on my words. And when I am done...somehow, I feel liberated. I am almost afraid for those memories to find me without my journal now, because I feel as if that is my only protection against them.

There are 180 college ruled pages that, in time, will be full, front and back, of all the painful things that I have been carrying around with me. When the pages have all been filled, with every last detail that I can squeeze from every grey fiber of my brain, there will be a ceremonial burning. Page by page. I think Ben Folds, as usual, says it best:

Leaf by leaf and page by page, throw this book away
All the sadness all the rage, throw this book away
Rip out the binding and tear the glue
all of the grief we never even knew
we had it all along
Now it's Smoke

We will not write a new one
there will not be a new one
another one another one

here's and evening dark with shame
throw it on the fire
here's the time I took the blame
throw it on the fire
Here's the time we didn't speak
it seemed for years and years and
here's a secret no one will ever know the
reasons for the tears
they are smoke