A Penned Life
Carole Lian
I don’t believe in the impermanence of a pencil.
Life is more like a pen.
You can’t erase anything.
All you can do is learn
which parts to scribble out.
The ink will always be there;
their imprints impacting
the page underneath it,
leaving empty etchings
as a forewarning against
making the same mistakes.
But, at least you don’t need to
look at them in vain, anymore.
When you turn the page,
you run your fingertips
over the pressed,
thinned out wood.
You remember
when the pen stabbed you,
and you told yourself
to never waste your ink,
scratching out your life
like that, all over again.
Carole Lian is a psychology major at UNCG. She’s graduating in May 2019 and is active mostly on her Instagram poetry page @mangledwords.
This is her first published work.
coraddimag.com 