bleeding heart

(on reading journals or burning them)

bleeding heart

opening my journals feels
like reopening old wounds

both the ones inflicted 
on me and the ones I 

caused / I know people 
who have burned their 

journals but I need to 
read mine, to dive deep 

into my past to see which 
harmful beliefs led me 

here and which ones 
I’m still clinging to and 

how I’m going to get 
all the dang way free

keeping a tourniquet
handy just in case

it gets messy

*

I wrote a guest blog post for my friend Joy Vetterlein about why I didn’t just burn my journals like a sensible person.

I’ve only just begun reading through them (on #8 of 62), but there have been some good surprises that have come out of it too. It’s not just carnage.

This blog post was the most words I’ve written in a row in quite some time. (I think it’s 1000 words.) It was a lot of fun, but I sure do love writing short poems.

Which camp are you in: read ‘em or burn ‘em?