I am writing again.

Actually, that’s a lie. I write every day, documenting my days and thoughts in dozens and dozens of journals over the past 30 years. My first-ever diary is in a landfill somewhere but my first journal—the one where I wrote Leonardo DiCaprio and Jim Carrey’s names in hearts—was given to me by my grandmother one Christmas. It was the same Christmas that she gifted me glow-in-the-dark stars for my bedroom ceiling and the beloved “Virtual Nature” VHS tape. The journal’s cover featured Norman Rockwell’s 1956 painting “Happy Birthday Miss Jones (school teacher)”. I wrote many, many silly things in the journal. It was in that journal that I wrote about “humping” and masturbation as I taught myself about what I was hearing and seeing on Cinemax, well after my parents were in bed. One of the shows was called “Emanuelle in Space” and for years I was obsessed with the name Emanuelle. I was 9 or 10 years old.

I grew up writing nonsense poems and learning big, impressive words along the way. I learned big-to-me words like “cognizant” and “ennui”. I decided that I’d learn every word in the dictionary. The first confusing word I came across was “abattoir”. I was disappointed that it was a word not often needed in conversation. But now I’m disappointed that I didn’t read the whole dictionary because I don’t follow through with a lot of creative projects because my interests and energies change drastically and quickly. If I don’t catch the bird as it’s soaring above my head, it is forever a missed opportunity, almost impossible to lure back to me. Sometimes it circles back around days, months, or years later. Most of the time, never.

Lately I have been wanting to write about more than just my daily wonderings and wanderings. My mind has been learning more into a fantasia of images, connections, and magic. I find myself making stories for things that I’m witnessing. I want to make something of this desire to write more. It is special and important to me and if you like it too, that’s fine and good. So this is where I’ll end for now but not until I share with you the first poem I wrote as a child that I loved and still love. It has gone unnamed and will continue to go unnamed because despite everything, not everything needs words.

A riddle riddles the eye to see and the cipher ciphers ennui. A dangerous pair, a confusing lie. Questions eat and answers die.