To my author

To the author who writes my story

Why is the story so dark

Why is this story so hard to turn the page

Each page is harder to turn than the last

To the author who writes my story 

You gave me chapters i wasn’t ready for

Lessons wrapped in pain like a christmas present 

Perfectly set under the tree, but only for so long

Ready to be torn apart by every person the next day

You write plot twists without warning

Ink spilling before I can brace for it

You let the margins fill with silence

And call it “character development”

I had to learn how to smile through paper cuts 

Paper cuts that shredded my skin into nothing

Cuts that i not only gave myself just to feel something other than my heart break

But emotional cuts that those around me dug into my soul

To the author that writes my story 

Why must the reader get bored and drop me without reading the first chapter 

Why must my cover be ugly and torn, ripped to shreds 

Why must the blurb on the back page be lifeless and boring 

To the point not even i wish to continue reading MY own story

The book in which each page turn weighs down my hand

In which it’s just easier to read the same page rather than turn it again

The book in which there seems to be no end

In which every chapter grows darker than the last 

You underline my failures in bold

Highlight the nights i couldn’t breathe

Annotate my tears like they’re important themes

As if pain is the only thing worth studying

Tell me, author

Why must growth feel like grief

Why must healing sting like salt

Why does every lesson arrive

Wearing the costume of loss

You sit somewhere above the pages

Watching me try to make sense of the ink

Watching me trace sentences

That were never written in my handwriting

The ink that not only flows on the pages but down my arm

The ink that is now red, thick and hot, and a pen that is shown as a blade

A pen, dull and rusted yet still gets the job done

A pen that has grown tired of being used

I grab a new pen and try to re-write my story

I fight everyday, change every ending

Every chapter and every line

Every page flip and every period

Yet the pen slips from my fingers

Not because the story is over

But because I am too tired to hold it

Because I admit that the author has won

The pages keep turning anyway

Wind doesn’t ask permission

It just moves what’s already fragile

My story already written in stone

I pray to my author for my story to re-write

I wait for you to answer

But the margins stay empty

No edits

No rewrites

No mercy in the next draft

Just ink drying

On sentences I never chose

In a book still being written

Without my consent

The spine begins to crack

From being opened to the same wounds

The pages curl at the corners

Damp with things I never said aloud

Maybe I was never the main character

Just a footnote in the page

Explaining someone else’s lesson

A paragraph crossed out

Before it had the chance

To mean anything

The ink keeps running

But the words don’t sound like me anymore

And somewhere between drafts

You stopped calling me by my name

Now I am just

“The tragedy on page”

Typed neatly in the outline

Of a story that never asked

If I wanted to stay

The ink keeps running

But the words don’t sound like me anymore

And when the final page turns

There will be no quote

No moral

Just blank space

Where I was supposed to be