My spiral spine holds thin slices of paper together.
Inside me, alphabetical letters play hide and seek.
I let her pick me up more than once a week.
And she caresses me in her arms,
Serenades me with her sweet poems.
Her name she writes tenderly on the margins of my heart
She and I—we have never been apart
Her tears soak my leaves,
As she tells me of her heartbreak.
Her heart I steal
Her sadness I feel
deep within me.
No more can I be
But that which she makes of me
It is I
Who holds they key
To all her past,
Secret gardens,
and at last—
As her familiar dark ink tickles my pale skin
I realize:
I am her comforter.
I am her captain.