A battered, broken girl.
Who held to the firm belief that you could hide
From the taunting
From the laughter
Hoping you could play pain you play hide and seek
And when they found her all she could so was run
Run until they helped her remember she was no good at running
And tripped over her own feet
Sending her home once more with the souvenirs of tears, scraped knees and a bent glasses
She grew up thinking of humans as wild dogs
Poised only to destroy and cut deeper into her already yielding heart
And that the only cure was to take a damp towel to her heart to stop the bleeding
And if it didn't stop the only thing she could do is press harder
Harder
Harder

Until one day when she found a new medium for
Paper, glue and stitches
There she found a pattern for a new heart
Made of paper
To write her story on
Glue
To insure no piece every strays
And stitches
To always be able to add more
She stitched it up and filled it in
It was alive

That was the day she discovered that the words written on paper
Where her trenches in the middle of a never ending game of twister
In a sea of people trying there hardest to stay up she found a way to stand
And she has been standing ever since
I still see that girl on occasion
Like a memory of the friend whose face you can't quite remember
And remember that day I learned
The day I replaced my frail broken body with pages of sweet-smelling pages of print

People may see my binded brethren
As nothing more than paper glue and stitches
They only see what they are made of not what they contain
They contain tears, laughs
A comforting hug in an alley of nothing by cold, warped metal
A house when you find nothing over your head
A cane when your own two legs have given up
A staircase to help you see above the fog
A bird to help you soar
A magnifying glass to see the fractures in the world
Glasses to see the beauty in the world
In those small printed letter I didn’t find a haven
I came to realize I have always had a home
And with every word I gaze apron is the water in which I grow on

My soul is made of books
Of paper, glue, and stitches