I'm not a librarian.

People:

You turn their corners,

you flip their pages,

you write a sentence or two in their guestbooks.

You read their lines,

gather enough information to keep their eyes from watering

and close the book with gentle hands.

I want you to press a leaf in mine.

I want you to fold all the corners down.

I want you to cut your fingers on the edge of the paper

over

and over

and over again

while you take in the texture of its spine.

I want to be in the front pocket of your backpack,

a pulse-kicker every time the zipper unfolds me;

I want my scent to line every page

every sentence

every word.

I don't want you to take care of that spine,

or put me in a high place you're "so proud of",

because those are the places that collect more dust than fingerprints.

I want you to ravage my pages,

throw me on the floor when you can't reach the desk,

because you stayed up too late reading me.

I want you to stay up too late reading me.

And if you don't scribble yourself all over my printed words,

if you don't underline my agonies

and highlight my heartaches

and x-out my typos

then put me down

and send me somewhere

that will.