what only the page gets to hear

Alone in the kitchen.

Tuesday morning.

The coffee is still dripping.

I know the thing I need to say

the way you know a splinter

before you pull it—

present, wrong,

waiting.

The pen doesn't work at first.

I press hard.

Harder.

The first two words come out smudged,

the ink dark and thick where I pushed down,

and I keep writing like this—

pressing,

pressing—

because if I don't mark it hard enough

it might not stay.

I say it to the paper

instead of to the person.

I say it in blue ink,

in a kitchen,

alone,

and it stays there,

marked,

the way my voice never could.

I don't mail it.

I don't show it.

Just know that somewhere

in blue ink,

in the margins,

I told the truth.