To all the stories I’ve read before

dear story #1,391,752, 

okay so perhaps i forgot your name 

or from whose heartbreak 

you came to fruition 

but what i do remember, tonight, as i lay

here with my eyes wide

open and my mind replaying that 

one scene with the blue curtains, 

is how you made me feel 

because sometimes the crack 

of an age-old spine is enough to 

send the memories tripping: 

hours spent on the couch 

cramped fingers from holding 

hardbacks at awkward 

angles because how 

is it possible to get comfortable 

when the only way to escape 

is to have neon blue cardboard dig 

into your flesh 

because sometimes a dog-eared page 

is home on a cold night 

a passage accompanied by knights

in steel armor 

a snowy night braved with a hooded parka 

and knitted blue gloves and however many 

layers a doting mother pushes her kid out the door with 

zipped up to the nose with only his blue eyes peeking out 

because sometimes a circled word 

or highlighted phrase 

is a mantra for sore eyes 

a comment in a sea of thousands

under a sad playlist of low fidelity  

an impulse tattoo on the wrist 

that is underplayed 

when some nosy 

office coworker asks (“yeah it’s just

a line from one of the books i’ve read before”) 

because sometimes i wonder 

what is a life without 

stories to tell it 

once the soul is gone? 

with love, 

your reader