Tonight I found myself picking at an old draft, the way you might thumb through a photo album you forgot you owned. Revising My Heart’s Pages in Quiet Honesty feels about right for this mood: something slow and unhurried, like letting the kettle come to a gentle boil. There’s a softness in the air, and I’m letting it settle around me.
I came across a line I barely remembered writing. “My chest is a window with the blinds drawn,” it read, and I laughed a little—softly, because the room was so quiet. I don’t know if it’s a good line, but it feels like me. Sometimes my heart hangs back, peeking through, just enough for the light to get in but not enough to invite the world. I didn’t plan it that way. It just arrived, like a song you hum without noticing, until you catch yourself in the act.
I think about how my voice shows up on the page. Black, queer, a little bit tender, a little bit tired. I don’t always spot myself in the lines at first. But there’s a pulse, a warmth that’s hard to fake. Maybe it’s the softness I’ve learned to hold for myself, or the way queerness lets me shape language sideways, with a wink or a sigh. My poems don’t always want to shout. Sometimes they just want to sit with me, quietly, until we both feel a little more seen.
Drafts are messy, and honestly, so am I. But there’s a kind of honesty in not cleaning up every feeling before it hits the page. I’m learning to let the small surprises stay, even if they’re a little awkward or shy. Maybe that’s how the heart revises itself, too—one quiet line at a time.
For now, I’ll leave the blinds half-open. That feels like enough for tonight.