I'm not quite sure why I did it...walked over to that dreaded bottom shelf and dug out the past.  The years of writing and recovery kept calling out at me.  I pulled each folder out and opened it with a curious dread.  Flipping though wrinkled and worn out pages.  I drudged up the things that I had buried...the things I have  regretted ...the things I miss...the things I fear and wish to burn.  I know I need to purge these failed writings.  Find an old metal bucket and lighter and set my past aflame.  But for some unknown reason I can't do it.  Maybe there is no fluid in my lighter...maybe there is no courage in my heart.  So I hoard my writings.  Tuck them into battered folders and sketch books.  Shove them into stained wooden boxes like corpses.  They sit thereandwait.  Quiet whispers calling to me...mocking me.  Waiting patiently for a night like this...when I'm drunk on wine and  vulnerable  to it.  I grab my port glass and crouch down on my knees.  Papers scattered and covering the floor.  I read them...  hypnotized  by memories.  A lot of the words make sense to me now.  I understand their meaning maybe more then when they were written.  But a lot of them are broken and unreadable.  Like someone with an amputated foot and no  prosthetic  to fill the void.  No form or  rhythm  when I silently and reluctantly read them to myself. I know thatpractice makes perfect. Like when trying to perfect a song.  But this is different.  When you make a mistake on the keys the sound fades and never returns.  It blurs into silence and isn't there haunting you.  With the writing it is like a bad book you pick up from the free bin at the used book store.  It sits on your shelf and rots.  My writing today is a masterpiece compared to those old ink smeared  infantiles . It has grown and matured like me.  Each day getting better and better.  So why can I not let them go.  Maybe because it would be like waving goodbye to my best friend...knowing I would never see them again. Maybe I fear that if I burn and tear them up I am burning and tearing up my past.   If I don't remember my past I can't remember how I got to be where I am now.  I wouldn't be able to pull my past off a shelf andremember thesuffering, work, pain, and trials.  I wouldn't be able to distinguish the difference between this notebook with the ripped pages that have been taped back together that I tore up in frustration from that one with the bright red ribbon that was filled up during a very dark time in my life.  Maybe they all make up my timeline in my mind.  This page here for this decade...this notebook here for when I was a  youthful  teen...this old napkin to remember a drunken writing spell hanging out with the best friends I ever had...this random sketch drawn out of shear boredom hanging out in the coffee shop that holds memories of falling in love with my husband.  There is a  mystifying  history here in these many many pages.  And I believe they will follow me to my grave.  Avision of walkingdown a path with all my writing trailing behind me.  I told my husband that when I die all this writing MUST be buried with me because I can not kill it.  I found a quote from me that he wrote down in one of my notebooks...it says "Writing has saved me and nearly destroyed me at the same time."  I still believe this today. When I feel the weight of the pen in my hand...see the ink stains on my calloused finger...hear the scratch of ideas on the page...I am  resuscitated.  When I read a line of broken form...see a memory I'd wish to forget written between faded blue lines...relive the sights and sounds when I read an old ode...I die a little.   Unfortunately  I did not choose this medium...it chose me.  I can't give it back or return it...there is no  receipt or recipient.  I'm stuck with it...Like it or not.?

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