I've had a few things on my mind that I'm just gonna cram into one journal. The first, and most immediate, is that I lost my poetry notebook. It's not as bad as it sounds, all of my finished poems are either in my yellow folder or on my computer. However, a lot of my unfinished ideas were in the notebook, so a few of those requests are gonna be delayed until I get my notebook back.

But there was something else that's been on my mind. Recently, my aunt's friend gave her a couple boxes of old books. Most of them weren't really the types she reads though, so she gave them to me. But that's not the important part. There were lots of small things tucked between the pages, mostly forgotten scraps of paper and bookmarks. However, in the back of one, was a very heartfelt letter from a woman who loved the previous owner of the book. A very sad letter written in 1992. Now as a poet, I get inspiration from all over, so of course this gave me ideas. And I write poems about people I know all the time. But the thing is, this is a letter written by a stranger, who poured her heart out specifically for a single person. A part of me feels like it's no big deal, it's no different than writing about someone you see walking down the sidewalk while riding a bus. But the other, conflicting part feels as if it would be wrong. I feel like I would be baring someone's soul to the world without them even knowing about it, let alone consenting to it. But then again, it's a seventeen year old letter from a woman whose name I couldn't even read. She could see the poem herself and might not even know it was about her. But if she did know, how would she feel about the fact that a piece of her heart was tucked into a Stephen King novel and forgotten? And that brings up even more questions. What if it wasn't forgotten? Perhaps the man who received it is turning his home upside-down, searching for it. Not to mention, the letter only gives half the story. There are a million details I couldn't even guess at. Does the writer get a happy ending, does she move on with her life, does he take her back? I don't know. I've been wracking my brain since I found the letter, and I'm no closer to deciding what to do with it. Do I call the man, and tell him I found it? Do I tuck it in an old shoebox, and forget it ever existed? Do I burn it, do I toss it out, do I keep it, do I use it, do I so on and so forth? I have no idea. Opinions?