Reading is power.
Writers wield power.
It is a deeply personal, purposeful power.
It is the power of emotion.
Writers contort,
Elicit,
Inform,
Demand—
Emotion.

And we readers comply.

Like the obedient child asked to fetch his mother a glass of water,
We comply without question,
Almost without even realizing the request.

So skillfully do these writers solicit our service
That we obey without thought,
Forever victim to the whims of the writers whom we read.

Anger on one page
Confusion on the next.
Fury in this chapter
Overwhelming glee twenty pages later.

Only in reading do we find ourselves so conflicted,
So torn between acceptance and rejection,
Love and hate.

We wring our hands over the warring words on the page,
We cry in one section,
And laugh in the next.

Above all, writers demand our compassion,
Our understanding.

Only they have the power to make even the vilest villain a sympathetic figure.

It is in reading, before all else, that we learn the strength—and the necessity—
Of the most useful emotion,
The most compassionate tool of humanity—
Empathy.