Witnesses to the passing of my days,
They are my jailers in so many ways,
Through clear ones and dates filled with haze,
Rereading them, their precursor signs amaze.

The truth sometimes I withhold,
At other times full of lies to behold,
I wrote them for other people to see,
Rather than to wander freely like a bee.

Bringing them with me wherever I travel,
Writing things like “I contemplated my navel”,
Or “Messieurs faites vos jeux, rien ne va plus”,
At times referencing Sartre, Beauvoir or Camus.

In the hints of one colorful page,
You can hardly see the wisdom of the age,
Sometimes I talk about my anger, my rage,
You can see at other times an actor on the stage.

Why bother write diaries if not to tell the truth,
Might as well buy a magazine from a booth,
Why did I make it an aim to fill them with deceit,
As if, of my life, a forger was doing a counterfeit.

One girl in my English class once remarked,
“Those who write diaries do not have friends”,
Well, maybe she was right, but it depends,
Yet perhaps she did get my thoughts embarked.

My first set of diaries, was hastily thrown in a garbage can,
I wanted them thrown at my university, or that was the plan,
University was the future and so there, my past was to be buried,
But I ended up tossing them somewhere in a move so hurried.

But somewhere in April 1996,
I went back to register the time ticks,
Until that fateful day in May 2003,
When on the passing sunsets I wanted to pee.

How to get rid of this new batch,
For me is still a tricky catch,
In them, eggs will be wrapped till they hatch,
But they will no more bind me or attach.

I will burn my diaries,
I will unlock my fantasies,
I might trash them in the apartment,
Or recycle them for the environment.

Today I am a man without memory,
Setting off to a new territory,
Without having to write it on paper,
My existence does matter.

My diaries resemble so much William Blake’s poison tree,
They locked me up, tied me in, instead of setting my soul free,
It is time for my foe to eat the forbidden fruit and let me be,
In the morning, glad, I will see: My foe outstretched beneath the tree*.

*Inspired by William Blake’s “The poison tree”