by Nabila Chowdhury
dear reader,
if you’re not going to treat me right,
please leave me on the shelf
in fact,
i’m surprised you’ve even walked over to the heavily guarded
forbidden section,
where undefined novels like me lie,
you see-
i transcend single genres,
the contents of my novels so world changing and astronomical,
Sparknotes quivers at the mention of my name
but look,
whatever you read between my lines is up to you,
and you may even be correct,
but you’ll never hear it from me
dear reader,
i hope to be a novel,
so familiar to your touch,
your lingering fingerprints leave crinkles on the edges of my pages
i want to haunt you so well,
that no matter the year,
you always come back to read me
and discover something new again
dear reader,
i am not a novel you can dog-ear on your favorite pages;
mentally picking at the bits and pieces you love of me the best,
no, i am wholly consuming,
leaving you with the confliction between
flying through my pages to get to the next and
drinking every sentence, every word, every consonant,
like i am all that can fill your thirst
i am not something you can skim,
and take my 18 chapters of age and compress them into one tight little summary
no, i want to be a novel you stroke at the spine,
one you choose over the sunset on those long train commutes,
one that makes your hours condense into minutes,
and can make your days feel like whole, completed lives
i want to be complementary to your
morning evening night
tea
dear reader,
i want us so enamored that
we can no longer determine
whether i own you
or you own me
