The Weight of Potential

I thought I lost my pencils today.

Notebook: check. The other tool: gone.

That was actually a worse feeling than much else —

the missing emails, the broken phone, the rain.

Stress, shame, and failure: the usual.

But what am I without a lead?

Notebooks are not reservoirs of memory;

they are the triggers of the spark,

flint to a steel.

A gesture, an overheard word,

a door swinging open to a room

that did not exist

until the graphite pressed the grain.

The thought is a mirage until it’s traced.

Then: the find.

A zipped pocket, a plastic clip.

Mechanical, resin, reliable.

I hold it in my hand and feel the gravity return —

the heavy, holy weight of potential.