The Book and The Reader

Photo Credit: BPPrice Flickr via Compfight cc

The Book and the Reader

I

I don’t know when and where I got the book.
I can’t remember the time before I had it.
It has claws and teeth, it bites and kicks.
It is always hungry.
Every day I hunt to feed the book.
Every night it opens for me. I read.
It keeps getting thicker and thicker.
New chapters show up all the time.
Now I know I will never finish it.
This is the only life I'll ever have.
No, I won't tell you if I am happy.
And I can't tell you what the book is about.
Some things are better left unsaid.

II

I don’t know how I came here.
Someone must have sold me to this person.
She takes me out at night.
She opens random pages, searching for something.
She scribbles silly verses on my margins
and draws candles and spider webs in corners.
She changes the order of my chapters, tears me asunder,
then puts me together in random ways.
She sticks duct tape all over me.
Oh, the liberties she takes!
She interprets me,
adding new sections and changing the ending.
I can no longer remember my real name
and I cannot tell you what my story is.


GloPoWriMo Day 2 - rewriting an existing poem in a different voice