i believed you when you said you loved me after 3 weeks because i am an old book and no one has ever taken the time to dust me off before. my pages are aged and delicate and my cover is disconnecting from the spine. but there you were, trying to read a dusty book.

but after a few weeks, you must not have liked where i was going. was my story too boring? was it too cliché? was i not long enough, was there a plot twist you didn't like, was my print too small? did i break too much for you to even read because every time you touched me, a page would turn to dust?

she is an old book just like me. i hope you didn't tell her you loved her after a few weeks. i hope you didn't dust her off to use the pages to roll cigarettes and leave her on your nightstand. i hope you take the time to read her and understand her. i hope you discuss her pages in book clubs and i hope you read her in coffee shops and before you go to sleep and on long trips and in quiet corners of the library.

i hope, for her sake, she's not the story i was.

-m. j. g.