On fountain pens, love, and the stains people leave behind Built out of an old journal entry __________________________________ I sit through this lonely melancholy night with soft piano instrumentals stirring the strings of my heart, refilling my fountain pens — green, plum, chocolate brown, and black — wondering if I am dry and empty too, just like these pens. Maybe I am all empty of love… or perhaps I am simply all empty of the desire to dream anymore — to imagine a future, to make things work, to put effort into wanting someone closely, intimately, vulnerably. You see, there is something strangely poetic about fountain pens. When a pen is refilled, it begins writing in the colour of the ink poured into it. No matter what colour the pen once carried, no matter what colour it is on the outside, what truly defines it thereafter is the ink within. It writes the colour of the ink. It becomes the ink! And perhaps love works much the same way. Little by little, you begin absorbing the colour of the person you love. Their language stains your thoughts. Their habits seep into your routines. Their laughter echoes in your silences. Their […]