100 Days of Poetry Challenge~ Day Ten/Free Verse~ "Just a Book"

A cover slightly blemished,
Binding not quite straight,
And a shy blush tinging the leather;

That's what greeted the readers
Of the small, insignificant book.

They couldn't read her face,
So they'd feel around the back.
No summary was there,
No words,
Just leather.

She was vulnerable,
Nothing protecting her
Fragile form;
They couldn't read her story
On the jacket.
There was none.

A lot of them quit after that.
Who wants to read a book without a story anyway?

But some kept going.
She was filled with fairytales,
Stories of love, pain, tragedy, experience.
The words were beautiful,
Exposing her story to the world
In tangible ink.

But it wasn't that exciting.

Few cared to finish,
But some did.
They came to know her,
Maybe love her,
And say, "That was good",
Tossing her aside as they did.

She would shudder with rejection,
Soon dusty and forgotten.

Inside,
Beneath the words and the page numbers,
Beneath the scripted ink and the chapter heading,
Were pages,
Blank as could be,
Hiding behind the stories.
For that's what books do;
They hide behind their words.

No one noticed the smooth texture of the paper,
The sweet scent as they flipped through it,
The soothing, pure sight of untouched pages.
They only came for the story,
And she gave it to them,
But they didn't see the pages,
The soul of the book.

She was really just a sheaf of
Cowardly papers,
Hiding behind the stories she hoped
People would like,

Afraid of not being read,
But also afraid of being read the wrong way.

Just a book.