Yours Truly 2019 YT 2019 PDF (Joomag) | Page 29

A Multi-Hundred Dollar Pen Couldn’t Pen a Better Poem Kailee Parsons I don’t need a multi-hundred dollar pen, no matter how beautiful it is (even a pen with the free-flowing blue ink, that you bought in a small jar at that corner shop in Venice, that you have to replace every six months when you’ve written too many words, because I would be changing that pen every day). I don’t need a pen with a gentle, delicate tip that allows for “minimum pressure on the hand and therefore minimizes hand cramps.” No, I need a couple dozen of those everyday, dime-a-dozen ballpoint pens that you can get at the front desk of every car dealership and eye doctor’s, that you click to open and close. I don’t care that they run out and dry up eventually, because they have been put to good use. I don’t want to be afraid of breaking my pen when I dig into the anger, hurt, confusion, beauty, longing, and nostalgia of a moment, when I press a little harder, faster, more desperately on the paper in a rush to get it all down before it consumes me whole, 27