January Momentum

I found it on the shelf.

The journal from New Year's Day.

My handwriting from early January,

thick with certainty,

pressing hard into the page

like I was trying to convince the paper.

Three entries.

Then nothing.

The first one: I wrote about intention.

The second: discipline.

The third: the word "already" underlined twice.

Already failing. Already quitting.

Already knowing I wouldn't make it to February.

The pen's still here, dried out,

cap off,

like I abandoned it mid-sentence

and never came back.

The rest of the pages: blank.

White. Patient.

Waiting for a commitment I never kept.

I hate reading my own handwriting from that day.

That loopy, generous optimism.

The way I made plans for a person

I'm never going to become.

The way I believed

in the person I would be

if I just started now.

It's February.

I'm not that person.

I'm the person who writes three things down

and then forgets

the whole point of writing them down.

I'm the person who leaves journals on shelves

with pen caps off,

ink oxidizing in the air,

evidence of effort

and the specific, familiar taste

of quitting.

I could start again.

But I won't.

Because I already know

what that handwriting means.

I already know

what comes after

all that certainty.