I held onto it
And said nothing
Far longer than lending conventions would accept.
Prologue to epilogue, I pored over every line
Trying to see myself in a between less empty
Than the vast margins I’m a martyr for,
Where the cause doesn’t cost much
Lost as I am in a monolith.
You made it simple;
Spelled it out for me.
Even if you knew I’d mix up your words
Until fact hid behind fiction
In a fantasy I imagined having the strength
To erase the pages I was too afraid to escape,
Replacing them with rewritten chapters I hated
And still somehow return whole to you.
I couldn’t.
You wouldn’t recognize the scuffed cover 
Or the folded corners of the papers I’d let yellow
So creased with fear they could barely
Hold it together on the cracked spine.
But you – 
You still opened the door.
Gathered the tattered paperback, no questions asked,
Saying it was a true story of me
I should have let you see.