Open eyes. Open window.
The birds chirp.
Someone, somewhere, cuts their grass.
A child plays. Laughter.

Open book.
Yesterday, one about love.
Today, a dystopian future where
people shroud in their house with fear.
Sound familiar?

Check my phone.
A text about linguistics.
How to pronounce an “R”
for a language I’ll never know.
Useful information for a different time.

Open the news.
100,000 dead.
Over 40 times as many from Pearl Harbor.
Over 33 times as many as 9/11.
Both horrible tragedies from before your time.
Both with more emotion connected in your brain.
I wonder if I’ve forgotten how to feel.

Another article.
Another man dead.
Another targeted for bird watching.
Another day I long for change.
To do: check your stigmas.
Don’t be like them.
Be human.
Be real.

Open book. Flip page.
Character reminds me of a simpler time.
High school. Friendship.
To do: text friends.
Maybe I’ll see them again someday.

Close book.
Tired of reading a troubled world
too similar to my own.

What else to do?
Take pictures?
This is not a time worth remembering.
Watch videos?
There isn’t another world to escape to.
Check news.
Tear gas. Moment of silence.
I can still feel. Wipe tear.

I’m done.
I’m done with the death.
I’m done with the destruction.
I’m sick of guns, and wars, and sickness, and isms.
I’m done hoping the world will change;
the world will be better.
Because it did, and it’s not.

Where will our world be in five years?
In ten?
Tomorrow?
Do I even want to know?
Because every time I take a step closer to believing
that we are good,
realty piles on top of me.
I see everything I have to privilege to ignore.
I see it all at once.

I love humans.
I love our differences; I love our flaws.
I love that we can talk to anyone in the world,
at a push of a button,
but I also hate it at the same time.
On days like today,
I don’t want to know what’s happening.
I want to stay in my bubble,
away from all the bad.

Open my book and pretend it’s all there is.
The darkness is just fiction.
Hope that one day, that will be true.

Take a page from my book.
Don't live to please those who would write you off
For choosing your own narrative.
Why let others write our stories.
Sitting idly by, as they use up the pages.

They forced the pen from your hand.
Take it back.
You know the words better than anyone.
But don't cover up their mistakes.
Tear-filled chronicles, a testament to growth.

When did you last write your own chapter.
You were excited to sign your name, you're the author.
Take up the sheets of paper.
Fill in the blanks.
Leave your mark.

When you read cover to cover,
Were you dynamic?
Did you go off script?
Underlined lessons?
Highlighted cautions?

When you've reached the resolution,
Will you be happy with your account?
Or do you have more to write.
If you have another story to share,
Take a page from my book.

The creak of a spine
And scent of a musty page
Intoxicates me

If my life was a book,
What genre would it be?
I don't think there's a genre for lonely,
Not lonely from other people,
But lonely from myself,

But that's not me,
Not constantly,
There are just days the sun shines,
And the rays seem to miss my face,

It wouldn't be a tragedy,
Even though there are days I think it could be,
I don't believe that my life is tragic,
Tragic things just happen sometimes,

I wouldn't call it a comedy,
No matter how much I'd like for it to be,
I can't imagine how easy it would be,
To only have to laugh,

If this is supposed to be a romance,
The author is doing a **** poor job,
I can't think of anything less romantic,
Then the way that boys have treated me,

But I know life's not that simple,
To be pinned down by just one word,
It leaves the good things or the bad things,
One or the other gets left unheard,

Life is complex and stories,
So many things have happened to me,
There are so many things that I've been,
So many things I want to be,

If my life was book,
The genre wouldn't matter to me,
The important question is,
Would it be a book worth reading?

If you want to see happy people
Go to the bookstore

As they flip the first few pages
Observe the cover and the edges

Notice the torn and the teardrops
Rub the coffee spills and the bookmarks

Smell the old cinnamon bread
As this 2nd hand book tells, the living and the dead

And if you see them smile,
And their eyes sparkle like the sea

By that you can tell
And tell, yet begin another story

So if you want to see happy people
Go to the bookstore

They are silently sitting in the corner
But you don't judge a book by its cover

new, unused; you picked me up
from quite a few parched with dust over them
excited you were so was I to be selected after all.

picture of me clicked, lights on and a perfect setup,
you and me only with a cup of chai and not so bright lights.

love thrill and excitement,
the first chapter had it all,
you read it and loved it,
like never before.

with the passing chapters the story slowed down,
so did your reading speed,
started forcing yourself, with tired face and sleepy eyes
struggled just to move forward,a bit more, a page more, a chapter more. maybe you should have Let me go at that moment,
but decided to hold.
never did you forget to take out time for me,
I have seen you crying smiling clinching to your pillow like a kid,
also while reading when that pink blush slid. soon the story paced up again, there were ups Lows and heartbreaks,
and you were sailing through them all,
along with me.

I was about to get over,
we were about to end,
you wanted me to be longer but the plot didn’t allow,
you finished reading,
you competed with me and you freed me,
that was how I wanted it to end.

now I am free I promise to be with you,
through your lows and highs and smiles and cries,
that’s why it’s always said,
it all starts with a good book.

Oh, sweetheart.
You're every star in the sky.
You remind me of a snowdrop encased in dark, cracked resin. Maybe frozen into the ice, then, deep beneath where the sun ever reached. The pride of the leviathan of the deep.
God, you're breathtaking.
Your eyes convey a thousand wishes, hope still glinting deep in there. You cultivate it like a small ember, a glowing shard of coal in the rain. It never goes out, not all the way. You can always blow it back to life.
You absolutely astound me.
Your bravery, your courage, your presence, it envelops me like the rumble of a thunderstorm deep within my chest. Your existence shines so bright it could light a path through Victorian London smog, your machinations a delightful enigma.
I cannot imagine not knowing you now.
Alabaster and deep azure, soot and iridescent verdant. I could get lost in your soul. Gazing into your mind feels like ****** of a secret, absolute ******. You make my blood boil. My veins are blue, bluest blue, thinking about you.
You're every book on the shelf.
You're every smile from a stranger.
You're every star in the sky.
Oh, sweetheart.