The Girl with Post-its on Her Wall

Her room is a mess,
Clothes strewn all over the floor,
Paint on her desk,
Post-its on her walls.

The post-its are all her notes,
Phone numbers,
Emails,
To-do lists.

She is a planner,
Likes to write things down,
So she won’t forget,
But these notes get lost,
Are forgotten.

So calls never made,
Emails never sent,
To-do lists never crossed off.

And the to-do lists,
Things she wants to do (but knows she won’t do),
Go something like this:
1.finish homework
2.get in shape for the sports she loves
3.read those library books
4.send Christmas card

And always,
5.write

Ah, writing is her passion,
Though she never seems to have time for it anymore,
But in fact half the time she’s bored out of her mind,
Flipping through channels,
Mindless television,
Mindless magazines,
Things that don’t require thought,
But no,
Her mind is always working,
Always churning out ideas,
Story plots,
Characters,
Poems,
Lyrics,
So she writes them down for later,
Post-its on her wall.

She gets excited and inspired by all sorts of things,
But then it fades.
She’s not so good at finishing the things she starts,
So things are put off,
She figures that these things will be done eventually,
But deep down she knows won’t accomplish half the things
On her post-its.

She’s ambitious,
But when it comes to doing,
She always finds a way to put it off,
She wants so much out of life,
Some things to do before she dies:
-be published,
-help a stranger,
-kiss the Stanley Cup (this one’s a long shot),
-make a DIFFERENCE,
But those dreams and goals are never put into action,
She’s never been good at that part,
Hence the post-its on her wall.

By now her walls are totally covered,
Decked out
With bright rainbow coloured post-its,
Perhaps she should arrange it into some sort of image,
Yeah later,
She should really write that down.

Some days she feels the notes calling out to her,
Begging to be written into a story,
A poem,
A song,
But those voices are drowned out
By the sound of pen against paper.

One day she wants to write a poem,
Spur of the moment,
She’s like that.
She knows she has the perfect idea,
She wrote it down,
It’s got to be on one of these post-its,
She stops and stares,
That’s when it hits her.

What good is writing down ideas,
When they are never put to use?
A shame,
For there are some are really good,
Maybe great,
Could be,
Would be,
Should be,
If only,
If only.

She was always good at writing,
So of course writing things down came naturally to her,
Reaching for pen and post-it unconsciously,
Then sticking it on her wall.

When ideas are flowing from every pore on your body,
It’s easy to just write things down,
Save it for later,
Like a sandwich in your pocket.

But then it gets smushed,
Ruined,
Forgotten,
And by the time it’s discovered,
It’s deformed.
Unrecognizable,
Like smudged handwriting.

Some of her most brilliant ideas are like that,
Still lost on the wall of scribble-clad squares,
But there.

The truth is,
It’s so easy to leave it like that,
Ripping one off is the hardest part.