The diary stowed beneath my bed
is filled on each page,
no farther than the first few lines.
And every day,
another page
never gets past the first five lines,
yet that is more than enough.
Brief entries fill the diary,
but every so often a page is turned
with only a date at the top.
All the while,
I am hoping
that a time will come
when even the margins
won’t be able to contain
my recollections
of a single day’s events.

I have no longer been able
to address each entry
with “Dear Diary,”
just as I am careless
to do any more
then toss it beneath my bed,
and let the paper fold
a bit further each time.
I let the diary exhaust its pages,
with final entries,
marked more by creases,
then a single line,
I can barely force myself to write.

I replace those pages
of short passages
with a white paint.
Each day, I white out another entry,
and in half a year,
even the covers have been coated.
The book is still tossed
under the bed,
causing the paint to flake,
and making it too ugly,
for the contents of the day
I covet to write about.