WHERE IS SHE?

Yesterday afternoon my favorite pen, one I have used for almost two decades, spoke to me in a soft weary voice that was almost a whisper. She said, "Stephen, I miss you. You no longer hold me as you used to. I was always able to tell how you were doing by the way your fingers felt around me, sometimes sad or angry, at other times passionate and gentle. Ever since that computer and printer enthroned themselves on your desk, you have almost completely ignored me; and I have often felt that all those wires were trying to strangle me.The words you used to squeeze out of me were filled with rhythm and wonder, poetry and wisdom, insight and promise, mystery and mastery; but now they just add up to lists of things you need at stores. Their challenge has dwindled from destiny to detergent. I was so much a part of you that your fingers carried my impression always. Even when you were drunk and used me as a dart I would eventually find myself nesting in your hand again, like a wounded bird. I know you will never write it to me, but I miss you." This morning I could not find her in her usual place on my desk. Whether a cat hid her, or I put her somewhere in my sleep, or she was taken by the fly-by-night lady who slept on my living room floor last night, I do not know... but the shame and emptiness I feel will linger, until I can write a poem telling her that now I miss her.