there are things I did not know were in me

Now I know—how can I describe this?—that 

there are things I did not know were in me, 

 

as when this morning I was looking for a piece 

of paper, some small space of white to write 

 

a list of what I hoped to do this day. 

So filled (I thought) with serenity, I found 

 

an envelope, unopened and addressed 

to you, and just as I began to write, 

 

something about your name (on the other 

side) seemed wrong, and so I turned it over 

 

to put a line across the name and crossed 

and crossed it out and crossed it out again 

 

and crossed and cried in anger and in pain: 

the paper all in shreds, the pen tip bent. 

 

[Joyce Sutphen {1949- } 'Bent', from Modern Love & Other Myths]