And who am I to think I should be loved
[When I’m not even sure what it means
Being me
Anymore]
So I’m tucking away the parts of me
[The Kate Lyn you know and love]
That shouldn't exist That love you
[You won’t have that frustrating child at your feet
Tugging on your shirt for reassurance
Anymore]

I’m closing off the eyes I only had for you
[Forever]
And
[In the meantime]
I’ll learn Braille
[So when you’re ready]
I will trace your spine with my fingertips
To see the name you’ve made for yourself
[Maybe you’ll even let me read your lips
With my own

But I get too far ahead of myself
By wishing that
Don’t I, Love?]

And who am I to think I should be loved
[For all that I am]
When I don’t even know what makes up all that I am
[I have yet to discover my favorite flavor of ice cream
And every stable person ought to know something like that,
I think,
Just in case.]

Who am I to think that you would love me

[I suppose that you did press your lips to my pages
Leaving kisses in the footnotes of my story
Burning away the definition of ‘just friends’]
There are four holes in my story now
[I counted]
When I tell people what happened to us

But love is more than that

[I think
That’s what I would like to learn
At least
By tucking myself away into an envelope for a while
Or perhaps into a bottle
I'd look prettier then
Knees against my chest
Watching my breath fog the glass
Taking my finger to draw hearts in the condensation
Letting it dry
Just to trace it again
Until you choose to see it
Getting drunk off my own message]

There’s more to me than the parts that love you
[I hope]

So I’m tucking myself away
Like I’ve said
[But hopefully not all of me
Because that would mean I can’t find any part of me
That cannot live without you]

Until I know the meaning of me
Until I can say I’ve left my hand on a stove for too long
[Experimenting with other love
Getting truly burned by a person that isn’t you]

I will not let my pencil be my driftwood anymore
[In this tempest we ignore]
I will wash myself up onto white beaches
Exploring the farthest reaches of my mind
[To fill those empty places I never take time to think about
With useful things
Like white roses and garden gnomes
Every yard ought to have those,
I think,
Just in case]

I’m going to stretch myself
[Until I’m thin enough to spread across a page
To be read like a book
Full of poetry that isn’t about you]
I hope you know how much it will hurt to do something like that
To let myself be put on display
[In some foreign library in a distant country]
To be looked through and seen
By eyes that aren’t yours
Because you’ll be somewhere else
[Doing useful things
Like matching socks
Or playing cards
Something like that]

I’m going to live without you
[For a while,
My love]
All those places that I’ve been wanting to see

I’ll see alone
First



[I feel that every person ought to be alone
At least for a little while
At some point
Before they can truly be happy with another]

And if you ever care to find me
[You know where]
Open me up on your card-playing table
[And if I've got white roses resting in my hair
And burns on the palms of my hands]
It will mean
[That I’ve seen all I need
And learned Braille enough]
It will mean
That I have learned what it
[Truly]
Means
To live
[Without you]

As you write you are hundreds.
Become the thief, murderer, and sacrificed.
You stand at the crossroads,
leading the sheep
and angry bulls.

Feel for the nemesis,
Feel for the grandfather --
their fluttering leaves of childhood worries.
You must feel from the heart for the sad.

"Help Us"
"**** Them"
You stand with one foot on each side
of that line drawn in the sand
with chalk.

Write, because in the pages
a rose is a poison, a city is a flower,
and the truth can leak from the pages,
and the fingers of the reader will absorb
and carry the truths to the heart.


Poppy P.
8/24/14

As I turned the last page,
I found myself broken
for it was time to bid goodbye
to our love story.
You saw the pain in my eyes,
and wrote another book.

©Aastha

I don't pretend to be a closed book.
I'm so open my spine is loose, falling apart.
I've been opened and slammed shut more times than I can count.
Pages are falling out of me and I can't put them back.

He looked at me
The way you look at
Stacked books
On a wooden shelf,
Carefully stroking my spine
After he's done it to
Three other stories
he'd gotten tired of.

Mr. Bookworm,
I am not a fictional option.
Yes, my cover is
Stained
And my last reader
Folded and tampered
With all my pages,
I only wish you'd
Treat this piece of literature
With respect.
You see, Mr. Bookworm,
I'm not a trilogy,
At least I'm not sure yet.
My Author isn't quite done with me. And I find it quite rude
That you stare at my papery insides,
Page after page,
Only to leave me
Back in the shelf,
Collecting dust.
Be patient with me, wandering reader.
Wait for my story
To reach it's ******.
Inhale my aging pages
Until you reach my resolution.
My apologies
For the times I've been
Rewritten.
But wait with me
Till you've reached my story's ending.
Because I swear upon my
Mismatched table of contents,
It will be a story worth telling.

We crawl into a book,
slipping in between print,
wrapping ourselves up in the comforting words.
It sits there waiting,
to invite us to its world,
sad dust collects when untouched.
Beauty in the creators imagination,
thought provoking, sad, happy -
emotions created by print on a page.
The smell of earth and must.
An exciting adventure to happen,
or an old and reliable friend.