I don't want to be a writer.
I would like to be a book.
I want to sit on a shelf in a library,
and be plucked by a loving hand,
and held by a window as the rain slips down it, nuzzled in blankets
and dripped on by apple juice that has run down the chin of
some scabby-kneed kid, perched on the arm of a tree
and I want to be dog-eared and remembered
and I want to be the place to turn to, the only one to turn to
where someone whispers, "how did you know? how did you know just how I felt?"
and I want to have been gone through once, passionately quickly,
so quick I gave you a paper cut and you get a little blood on my page, but I don't mind so much, because you love me,
and then
lingered on, and re-read because maybe there was something
that you missed before
and I want to have seen so many things,
probably the best things,
and meet absolutely fascinating people
because it is only the most interesting people
who read
and I want someone to bury their nose in my pages as they morph from shadowed white to afternoon wheat,
and I want to be covered in words, and coffee, and saliva from the finger of the teacher who slobbers on every corner, and grime, and salty tears and jasmine bath soaps and ink that has leaked from your favorite pen in your bag
and I want to be ***** and held and tossed and spilled on and marked up and I want my binding to be loose, but still intact,
and I want the professors to speak about me
and I want the youth to think about me
and I don't even really care what anyone thinks I'm saying,
so long as they listen to me speak
and pluck me off the shelf.