Notebook Narrative

I would tell you, dear computer, that I have nothing to write about, but you are so different from a notebook. Pencil and paper, dark leather cover that smells new. You are a machine, cold and impersonal, incapable of compassionate response or critique of my writing or my soul. A notebook however, has my personality, knows me with my messing handwriting, my constant need for the friendly eraser that forgives me time and again, my doodles and notes in the margins, flowers and leaves and shells pressed between the pages. A notebook is mine, when I pour my words into it bits of my soul are captured. Like frames of life are caught by a camera, the residue of myself catches onto the pages as I wash in between the fibers of the new paper. A notebook can soak up my thoughts, worries, insecurities, secrets, fears, angers, dreams, loves, hopes, and leave me feeling clean and new. All of this that builds up and threatens to spill from my brain; forcing its way up my throat and exploding out of my mouth in an incoherent flood like drunken speech and drunken bile. With a notebook, it can instead flow through my hand in such a rush that I can hardly keep up. The stains of the day can wash off my skin and settle in the pages like rain water sinking into the ground. I can close my faithful notebook, trapping those distractions that tickle my ears with echoes and whispers, dance on my lips with phantom kisses and bits of song, and brush my eyelids with memories and dreams. Yes, I relent to use you, computer, to record my writing, but I would prefer to be outside, underneath a tree, in the dirt, in the wind, in the sun, with my notebook. No offense.