If I Were a Book

If I was a book

would you read all the pages?

Not just the bright ones

where the ink still smells like hope

and the margins are wide enough for your dreams.

Would you linger

on the chapters where I dog-eared myself

trying to mark the places I broke

so someone might find them

and still stay?

Would you touch the coffee stains

left by nights I couldn’t sleep

and trace the tear-salt rings

like rings in a tree

telling you how old my sorrow is?

Would you read the parts

I wrote in the smallest script

the ones I hid between the lines

because saying them out loud

would have killed me?

Would you turn the pages

when the binding cracks

when the story stutters

when the protagonist is unlovable

and the plot refuses to resolve?

Or would you leave me

half-open on the nightstand

spine bent like a wounded bird

whispering dust into the dark

“I was almost finished with you”?

Tell me,

if I was a book

would you read me

slowly

like prayer

or would you skim

for the parts that make you look good

and close me

before the ending

that might have changed you?

Because I am tired

of being returned

with the receipt still tucked inside

proof that love

can be refunded

if you keep it

in mint condition.

So if I was a book

would you read all the pages

even the ones

that bleed when you touch them?

Or would you just

add me to the shelf

and tell your friends

you’re “working through” me

while I wait

quietly gathering weight

until one day

I am heavy enough

to hold a door open

for someone

who was never afraid

of a story

that refused to end neatly.