I can’t fall in love again
with your white paper pages
with your stanzas, and prose
with the heart you proposed
the art you impart on those
whose eyes are open and ready
whose hands are clean and steady
hopeful in dreams of yesterday,
tomorrow, and today.

I can’t indulge the pains
of your lovely nostalgia
old covers and titles
trips taken in under a mile
light year journeys
traversed in days
while smiling and learning
lying in bed under a warm electric cover
with a lamp light shining over
or sitting under a tree’s cool shade
as the wind tries to prematurely
turn me to the next page.

I can’t fall in love again
because you break my heart
with your lies, sweet fictions
that inform and surprise.
Till, water fills my eyes
and after the last page I ask why.
Then when I am ready
I find the nearest library
preparing for such sweet misery
that literature gives me.
Despite my heartfelt protests
I invest in a hundred plus pages of
falling in love with another story.