if I were a book

Fine Print Literary Magazine, May 2018
If my life were a book
and you went out and bought it
I wouldn't care if you bought it for full price, hardcover, pages trimmed clean
fresh off the press
Or that you were at the signing
eager and grinning. Listening for your favorite passage.
I'd rather you stumble on it
anywhere
in a thrift shop sale bin
these books must go! ten for a dollar!
You’d pick it out, your fingers feeling its bent, tattered chapters
Ear-marked pages barely hanging on between broken-in covers
Read, time and time again.
And then, when someone saw it on your shelf and said
I heard that one was good, what did you think?
I’d want you to swallow the wine in your mouth, set your glass down and say
I couldn't put it down.
And when it was over I cried
it was such a good story
And even if you said
I hated the way it made me uncomfortable
but I had to keep reading
I saw myself, I didn't want to
You should read it, and decide for yourself
But if you said
That one? I can't remember
then I wouldn't want to be a book at all.