Words

A little black book and a simple blue pen,

A gift I received at the age of ten,

Not like money or simple boy toys,

A strange kind of gift for most little boys.

It didn’t get used for several days,

Until I decided to make paper planes,

It stayed on the floor and under my bed,

Then I had thought, I’d try drawing instead.

I couldn’t really draw so I started to write,

I tried telling stories but that was a fight,

Years went by and I found it again,

It even still had that original pen.

I crafted some poems that were easy to rhyme,

And more seemed to come as years trickled by,

Songs and poems expressing my truth,

Rhyming words that healed ever bruise.

The sorrows I felt were deep as I wrote,

Tangled in chaos, I wrapped them in hope,

It may have been dark and didn’t feel right,

I ended them all with a beautiful light.

And then one day it slipped through my mind,

That little black book, I left it behind,

While writing the pressures off of my chest,

I was late I was rushed, so I up and left.

I retraced my steps and sought it for days,

Morning and night, in sun and in rain,

I couldn’t believe that the book disappeared,

I wrestled and wandered and mourned it with tears.

I grieved for so long for the art I had lost,

A terrible heart and a horrible cost,

My pain relieved words, the truth I revealed,

Leaving behind the hurt that was real.

More time had passed and I forgot,

Those lessons the book had listened and taught,

Until on one day with familiar sounds,

That stopped all my motions and turned me around.

A car went by and I heard a new song,

With words that seemed they shouldn’t belong,

These words were clear and I recognized,

Because those words, were words that were mine.

A song I wrote some years ago,

But how could this have happened so,

Did that little book find a new home,

Where someone then matched my words to their notes?

I slowly walked home in foggy mind cloud,

I couldn’t reconcile the what or the how,

I picked up my mail that had a small box,

Still in confusion and feeling quite shocked.

I cracked the box open and dumped it all out,

My eyes got real wide I dropped my whole mouth,

There came out fast my little black book,

My head was just rocked my world had been shook.

I grabbed up the book and flipped to a page,

It was my old book that hadn’t been aged,

I cried in pure joy and I couldn’t talk,

But more was inside the small cardboard box.

A short written note had been put inside,

That said that this book had saved their whole life,

One night with a gun, and a plan to just die,

Had been disrupted by a wandering eye.

The bench that they chose had held a small book,

And they decided, before, they would have just one look,

But the words they read were felt so profound,

They could not stop reading or put that book down.

A common felt sorrow, distress and despair,

A comfort in knowing that other got there,

But also discovering a morsel of hope,

Deciding to live they left and went home.

They shared with several passionate friends,

The words they heard and shared again,

Producers enamoured, narrowed to one,

It could become a most famous song.

They conjured a tune and matched up a voice,

Famously fit the Hollywood choice,

The song was launched and became a great hit,

Though I was completely unaware of it.

Just one more paper had been tagged along,

“Little Black book” was the name of that song,

I flipped that last note, while cocking my neck,

My name was atop of a twenty K cheque.