I wondered whose intention it was
to put this book of blank pages
in this drawer, and never leave
a sentence in it.
Was it intended to be a ledger,
a journal, a diary?
My imaginal soul,
frustrated,
began to read the blank pages.
The book was like a life never used.
Never looking in a mirror.
White pages that had yellowed,
become fragile,
eyelids that never opened.
Seeing the story
I remembered dreams,
bills, children.
Taken back, I began to read
the book that was never written.
The dog, buried by a boy
in the garden.
A doll lost under the rafters
of an attic.
A girl shouting for days
to the doll.
A woman contemplating divorce.
A man working in an empty job
and talking to himself.
Poems gasping for a first word,
then disappearing.
I encountered a family of
huge emotions.
Vacations and lost coins
in a wishing well.
I imagined a household
looking at the light
at the bottom of its doors.
A ship drifting from its mooring.
A child that forgot to wake up.
A dream come true.
And I laughed, brooded, cried
and shuddered.
My story and their story together.
And tired,
I closed the book of blank pages
with my fingerprints and tears.
A story that told itself to me
without its writing,
or an author.