I want you to break my spine
and show me that you love me.
Tattoo your thoughts
up and down my empty spaces.
Fold my edges
and remember where you were inspired.

This isn't tearing,
isn't coffee cups,
isn't shoving in a bag.
These are the scars you get from living beside me.

My books won't look like they spent their lives with helicopter parents.
I will
break the spine if it means being able to look a word in the eye
fold the page if it sang me a song
write my thoughts if I need to have a conversation with it's monochromatic skin

When I die,
my family will visit me in my books.
I will be inescapable on those pages,
my name reminding them that this book was a part of me,
my soul pouring out of every annotation.

You'll know which ones my favourites are,
they'll be the ones with battle wounds.
With bruises from all the places we've been,
with ruffled pages from all the times I've needed to read a passage one more time.
Chapter 8 will always fall out,
but not because I didn't love it,
because I loved it too much.

When you open the pages you'll read two books:
The one that I read and the one that crawled out of me in response.
I'll revisit myself like an archeologist, remembering what mattered to me the first time and what matters to me now.
How far I've come,
how long these pages have lived for me.

So break my spine.
Chisel yourself into my gaps.
Show me that you love me.
- Ariel Bissett

photo taken by me.