Cheater

Introduce me to love, then leave

She picks me up and runs her finger down my spine. Brushing her hand gently across my face she cleans off the dirt. It feels nice to have attention after being used and mistreated so often. She opens me up slowly, and i let her in. She begins to help shift through the chapters of my life, page by page, I relive my past. Pages torn out as if readers just couldn't bear the climax, not meaning to hurt me. Most thought if we pretended it never happened it would be better, easier. She strokes tentatively over the scrapes that decorate my body. As a book, some loved the read; held me with pride. People judged me by my plain cover. I showed people a new world through my story, one that they might hope to relate to. I inspired, help them carry on. "It's as though" she whispers "you're telling of monsters and how you defeated them, doesn't always scare them. Some people see hope" and to this I smile because someone else finally understood. "I will love you forever, and you will always have a place in my heart" she promised me. The ones I am dedicated to sit on the edges of their seats, their eyes bare into me, trying to see how i will turn out. They judge my every word and looking for errors. No matter how much society rated my worth, I know that i have a good story. I am based on honesty, pain, death, but also resilience. I may not have a happy story, unedited but still beautiful. My story brought tears to her eyes, but I also helped her survive. With wisdom filling my pages, no judgment, I'm a different kind of read. I don't have a perfectly painted cover, yet the illustrations have an edge that make you wonder what the author was thinking. She reads the last sentence of my life, closes me carefully, a flicker of sadness in her eyes, she smiles softly. Eyeing my title she puts me on the top shelf and says "you are worth much more, and you will always have a place in my heart". She walks away and signs out a book with a prettier cover, and a smaller frame; I feel loneliness and betrayal coursing through the threads that hold me upright. I await for the next girl whose life i will help change and begin to wait for my new life.

(c) Kiara Farough