The Book

THE BOOK

Way up high, on the very top shelf
I found a dusty book written about myself.
Its cover was thick and hard as a rock.
Its contents were bound by a small iron lock.
But, with magic understanding, it slowly opened wide
to a page marked “childhood” on one side.
The ink here was pink and sometimes green or blue
with red polka-dots and purple scribbly-doos.
The pages were smeared with sugary prints,
I recognized a lollipop and a few chocolate mints.
And as I skimmed through it, I saw what I’d done,
I’d skimmed through my childhood and now it was gone.
The Book seemed to gain such weight in my hands,
my legs became weak - I could no longer stand.
The chapter before me was one marked “Now”
and the pink scribbly ink had turned black somehow.
The words were complex - the penmanship plain
- the pages warped and wrinkled with liquefied pain.
And I understood the reason for this dark and drastic curse,
The Book had noted my life’s change for the worse.
It could not be erased, I knew without trying
and it made me cry out to see my innocence dying.
I wanted to change the course of this fate
and I needed to know that it wasn’t too late . . .

The Book’s pages turned and were now white and new,
no chapters marked “Now”, no scribbly-doos.
These pages were fresh and ready for words
- a new hope, a new tale, a song nobody’d heard.
So, I laid the book down and made up my mind,
for, the pages were numbered - there wasn’t much time.
My life was a book, with chapters to write
and I wanted to fill them each day and each night,
with my dreams and my hopes, my joy and my pain,
I wanted each page to be wonderfully stained,
so that one day they can read the notes that I took
In Between the covers of my Legacy Book.

- Heather Killough-Walden