The paper will always listen.

Photo courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net

"Sometimes 

there's no one to listen 

to what you really 

might like to say 

at a certain moment.  

The paper will always listen.  

Also, the more you write,  

the paper will begin 

to speak back 

and allow you to discover 

new parts of your own life 

and other lives 

and feel how things connect." 

~ Naomi Shihab Nye,

 in The Place My Words are Looking For

There have been times in my life when I felt I had no one to listen to me.  In many of those times, I ended up turning to my trusty pen and paper (or my keyboard and monitor), to "speak" to them.  What Nye says is true:  It doesn't matter whether I recite some poetry or tell a story or just scribble my emotions onto the page -- the paper does always listen! And, as she also says, after awhile it does start to speak back. :)