I hope that I can write in my journal more often now. When I don't write my journals are bleached, and blinding. My empty pages are glaring truth. Pages sanitized, clean, like clean sheets. Or white flags of surrender. Like seeing ghosts. Hearing voices. Smelling desire. Touching eternity. A charity and a cruelty. A paper cut. Salt. My empty journals are made of gauze to wrap a wound. A stage. Scenes painted white. Empty pages like programs never printed. Reviews never written. Writer's block. And conceit. My vanities revealed. My colored hair turning white. Swirls of moisturizer rubbed on my cheeks. Sun blocked protection. The scent of gardenia. All those words wafting above the page. Clouds. Bones. Stolen letters. Michelangelo's David. Triathlons I won. Ice, dry ice. Letters never written. My "Treasures of Truth." Scrapbook of tears. A hoax. A tease. A puzzle. Nothing. Everything. My journals can be read forward or backward, a palindrome.

Backward and forward: I have a friend who was once my sister. Now we hardly ever talk, but she often is in my dreams. I think of her. I miss her.