Some stories don’t bind

I was never “an open book” because I wanted to be.
The storm cracked me open.

My story doesn’t lie neatly in one place.
It’s scattered and sometimes,
a single page gets picked up
by someone who thinks:
this is too much,
too messy,
too painful,
or simply: not for me.

And yet, there are always a few
who keep reading.
Who even help you look for what’s missing.

This piece is for them.
And for anyone who ever believed
their own pages were too damaged
to still hold meaning.

I’ve always been an open book,

but not by default.

It’s more like the winds and rain in my life,

have picked up my book,

threw it around

to the point where it started losing its pages

Because it fell wide open



And even then those pages

Would independently be picked up

By even more rain and wind

And if someone were to find one of them

It wouldn’t make sense to them

As all words were bruised and faded

But I think even if those pages hadn’t been torn

And if they were still bundled in my book

They still wouldn’t have made sense

To those who never truly wanted to understand

To those who never even tried to read



And even after finding that single lost page

They’d likely think it was too worn

Too fragmented to bother making sense of



Maybe because their own book

Had started losing its pages as well

Maybe because they were doing everything in their power

To keep their book from failing apart

Or maybe they had just found their pages back

And were in the midst of glueing everything

Back together into something coherent

So another scattered book

Was simply too much for them.



Or maybe they decided my book wasn’t for them

Because their books are fairytales

And they don’t want their illusions destroyed



And then there was a small group

who gave it a try

Because they immediately recognized

Some of it from their own book

Or even from their own missing pages

Even a few sentences were enough

To make them reach out and pick one up



But they lost interest not long after

Because they were still losing pages as well

And they couldn’t make sense anymore

Of the paper chaos in front of them



And then there were maybe one of two

Who weren’t only wrong to pick up a pages

And try to make sense if it

No, they’d even begin searching

For the rest of the book



Not because they didn’t have their own

Not because theirs weren’t lost or damaged

But because they had found a way

To live with their own torn, weathered pages

And they understood how hard it is

Not only to find your missing pages

But to gather them back

And gently make them yours again