Every book I open
Every story I read
Another adventure I start
Another Life I begin

I live with them
And laugh
And run
And cry with them

I just don't belong
Not in the real world
But however unlikely
In literacy I find a place

In the end
The pages ripped my heart
They pull me apart
They ruined my life
And they changed who I am

Yet without them
My life is nothing
I am incomplete

The author who holds the knife
Dangles it over my head
With each character's death
A new tear in my soul

A new life in literacy
A gift not all can receive
Without literacy  
I would have no life at all

Such is the curse of the reader

Do not feel sorry from them
Feel sorry for those those who do not read
For those who live but one life
A life a ignorace at that