#UnopenedPages
Dust tickles my nose
With a most insistent itch.
Having long since
Given up on being read
Any time this decade,
I resume my habitual
Observation of you.

I've watched you fight
For the right to grow
Into your adulthood.
I can categorise your growth
By your reading habits.
~~
Long ago,
You consumed novels
As desperately as oxygen
While you floundered to
Stay afloat.
You used us as avenues
When you longed to escape
The internal turmoil
That had become
Uncomfortably familiar
As an everyday occurrence.

You read from the moment
You awoke,
To the moment your eyelids
Grew heavy.
You read as you walked between classes,
Awaited teacher arrivals,
And filled time
Once tasks were complete.

Our lifespans
In your attention
Were fortunate to last
Three days.

You were a prolific
Dog-earer,
Then smoother.
You were entrusted to
Borrow past the school library limit -
Especially over the holidays.

You didn't take note
Of this significant kindness
Until years later.
I wonder whether the librarians
Noticed your drowning arms
Flailing desperately for the life ring
They then provided.

You'd read the entire
High school's fiction section
By Year 10.
Lost then in the...