Private Fire

Digging out old journals, flipping through
the pages she had written almost thirty years ago,

eyes fell upon a sentence that she might have written

yesterday. She didn't need to pull out readers to dicipher

it, but it was more than she could bear, that what had
weighed so heavily when she was young, the problem, root
of so much trouble, yet remained, the resolution undiscovered,
not from trying. Not from trying, she thought wearily as tears
welled up. Enough, she thought. These have to go, the evidence
of failure better burned than found, perhaps,when she was turned
to ash herself. And no one in the house was curious that she was gone
so long, out back, alone, some lighter fluid, paper, stack
of journals that took longer than she'd thought,  to be consumed.
They held so many memories. What saddened her the most
was that she'd vented more than she'd rejoiced, and happy times
had woven, surely, through the years. The pages tried to

keep the flames at bey, but when she stirred them with

a stick, they breathed the oxygen and joined the dance,

as she would one day do herself, she thought. Not soon,

she hoped. Not yet, she prayed, as disappointment burned

before her eyes, the memories small bits of glowing ash 

that rose into the evening's air and cooled, and disappeared.

When finally the fire was out, the journals undistinguished

from the remnants of the burned up leaves and limbs,

she squared her shoulders, sighed, and walked back

to the house to join the others, who would never guess

that she had changed, alone, outside.

(c) Ellen Gillette, 2015


The author of Writing Down the Soul talks about writing journals but also about destroying them. What would that feel like?