erasers.

i have pencils. the tools of sanity. i remember the first one i learned to write my name with. it was yellow and triangle. apparently  egronomical. at 7 i thought that meant cool. at 20 i still do.

but its ergonomics (though duly noticed and appreciated) aren't what always strike me about pencils. its the pink nubs of power at the end of each. the freedom to write with the rubber rationale of simple and effective redos. 

we often hold this tool where words, thoughts, fears, hopes can crawl from our mouths, down our arms, slide through our pencils and drag themselves onto the paper in their dull and annoyingly smudge prone characters. but with our hearts in our hands we are never truly defenseless. never truly vulnerable. 

is that what gives us courage? the awareness of an escape if needed. does it opens our minds. does it free our fingers to pick up that splinter of aromatic nostalgia. is that my armor. my shield. my lubricant. my empowerment. not the pencil but the eraser. the awareness that regardless of my vulnerability, its never permanent. 

so i sit. with a pencil. and paper. eraser ripped in half on the floor. begging to protect. and my heart steps out. timidly. hesitant in the first letters. but those first twists and scrapes of graphite onto recycled lines. liberate. 

my respect for speech now deepens. for the truth that James emparts. 

the power of my tongue. to love or kill. without a net to stop the drop.

i step through each day. with an eraser on my pencil but only lead in my mouth. 

and its more than liberation. 

its responsibility.