The Only Tome You’ll Ever Need
I touch your tears
as they weep on languid pages
like a solitary drop of rain,
leaving sodden traces,
seeking the sun’s solace
and the warmth of my ink,
trapped as a character
existing only in a novel.
I see your pooled green eyes
imploring me to gather you
into my story so that you
can escape your heartbreak.
But it is I who begs
to escape the confinement
of my imprisonment
in the cold world of phrases.
You can close the book on me
and I’ll still be there while
you make furtive escape
from your reality, feeling
the catharsis my words
have gifted you as you
go one living in your flesh.
I can imbibe your lilting voice
emanating from your world
but my existence stays
in swirled idioms
as I yearn to hold you,
tightly, in more
than erotic thoughts.
Your lips trace my words
and moisten my ragged pages,
which fall in scraps
around my hidden heart.
I want to consume you
in my burning novel
of erotic happenstance
while your life
occurs and evolves
without me.
When you slam my book shut,
you leave dog-eared corners,
poignant evidence you melted
my inner core,
partaking of my sustenance,
without ever responding
to the hardness of
my scroll inside you,
loving you as I bring
you to the ultimate in life.
Every time you open
my book, it is as if
you have opened your body,
spreading your legs
to me and have returned
once again smelling of
fresh rain allowing me to
inhale you and incorporate
you into my passionate embrace.
Your emotions transcend
your denials as my need
for you filters through
and touches your skin,
feeling your dew
as you flush and
become aroused.
I bleed crimson nouns
and sensual verbs
for you, as I emote
in my novel,
finding myself dying
in the middle of
a heartfelt sentence
of promise and love.
I will never forget
the lingering look
of lust and desire
on your face
as you closed my book
with only a backward glance
and ran off with
a character in
another piece of fiction.
Why couldn’t you see
that I was the only tome
you would ever need?
Ambroise
We've met before. You with your wandering eyes, intent on piecing this all together. Those lashes bat so hesitantly, those lips part a bit, why so? You follow the words as I impart them for who's to say we're strangers? We've traveled this road before, word-to-eye with others, but now, we share this moment, at last. This moment, ethereal, an operation in limited dimensions. You do all the work, I know.
Heart on sleeve, I'll tell you, this wasn't easy. It wasn't an easy realisation for me, certainly not. To be bound, shackled to a page, within a space too small to be representative. Where do I start? To describe oneself so succinctly must surely be missing the point, right? What do you say when meeting someone for the first and last time with only a short time to spare? But time is not the problem, not as problematic as space.
What represents me? Where I was born? The circumstances of my birth are quite unique from embryonic idea to matured form, but really, this happens every day all over. I developed rather suddenly but less by metamorphosis than as a construct of chiseled marble, to relate proverbially. My parent was singular but also bipartisan for creators are sexless. Did you know that? How many children have you had by the way?
Where was I raised, you ask? Well, here of course, this page. My history is inferred for there isn't space here to include everything is there? I may not choose my words wisely (or do I choose them at all?) but they all symbolise meaning. Because words are like that, like lives, they embody the context infused upon them by others, like you. Encased in glass, if you will, waiting to be shattered to life. Otherwise, we dream of being noticed, gaze at ourselves in a sphere of water, crack under pressure.
I could tell you all about myself but then that would only be a part of me. That would be disingenuous. Perhaps, what would be best is, if I acted as vessel for your projection. Sound fair? That way we're both satisfied. That's what love is I've been told. Well, I haven't actually been told this but I feel it through the medium, you know, that fabric between parent and child? It's similar to that I think. To give, to receive, to return the reception, to accept the reflection. The first two parts are simple, the latter two dependent on the parties involved.
With me though, I'm entirely yours. You read me and I bask here, this sky the colour of a pale maiden's bitten thigh, warmed, dreamy, reluctant to leave, immortalised in page. We won't meet again but you can revisit this capsule, it will not fade like memory but it can only be as vivid as you make it. Do you love me? Don't answer that.
Love’s Person, Mood, Tension, and Message; and the Enemy Without
Our Characters
We share an enemy, you and I. He can make us or break us, he can make us fight and he can make us fly. He can make you know about me, all my innermost thoughts, or just some of them, or even just what I'm willing to tell. He can share what others think of me, or what I think of others, if it moves our story. He can engender me, gender me, age me, weather me, even explain me. I am powerless in his hands.
Our Background
He has put us in the past, allows us in the present, or predicts us in the future, with woulda-coulda-shouldas locked in the subjunctive were it prudent...were it. He will make us active, passive, and passive-aggressive. He will unravel my essence but cite my distance from quintessence, for no one wants perfection, and you will eschew such selection, bored, our story fated to be unread.
Our Setting
He is our only peril, so don't be fooled by the ordeal at hand that has been dealt us. His keystrokes are our strikes. He wants you to like me, to even love me, and then he challenges you to remain true when revelations strain our bond. It will be rough going if our relationship is not to be boring. The rougher, the more of you will be there for me--the more lovers I will have. But whoever said love was smooth? Or easy?
Our Moral
We rise and we plunge, and what falls out is worth learning. It may be simple or complicated, but it's there for all to see. You and me: the sum is greater than the addition of the parts. When you remember me, you will thrill to what you've learned because of me. Often I won't even see it myself, but as long as you do, it's the only thing he does that can make me happy.
The Denouement
Like in everything, the timing is precipitous, head-long, sideways, head-over-heels as we race toward a climax. A lover's climax. Planted devices, once inconsequential--even unnoticeable--come together to shock, awe, and settle us. Nonsensical matures sensical, and you see me for who I really am, thanks to him. Now that your love of me may falter, your love of what we shared--what we had together--will never. And you will find it hard to separate that from me. And us. But him? He's gone on to put other lovers together in lives that sit between bookends.
Book of Love
So my friend, it's nice to meet you
Do you wish to read?
Well open up and go on to
A delightful story indeed!
Now if you can just picture
The spell was put on me
Remarkable in stricture
Oh how I begged and plead.
So please, oh please, do read away
Just pay me no mind.
You can read night and day
Maybe even unbind.
I've been trapped in this book
For longer than I can count
The sorceress tricked me with her hook
There was no mercy, no amount.
You really are the hero
For which I've hoped and prayed.
So far there have been zero
My demons still unslayed.
Your eyes they mesmerize me
You are such a dream
You so hypnotize me
Like the sweetest cream.
The touch of your gentle hands
Brush softly against my spine.
Give me all your demands
How can I make you mine?
Do you enjoy a mystery?
How about a little history?
My pages change to fit your taste
There is no need or time to waste.
Just please dont close my cover.
Don't ever set me down.
I will love no other.
Please don't make me frown.
You are my very last hope
You are the gift I need.
We could run off, elope
I will give you my seed.
Let me explain how this spell works
It's really not so hard to beat
It was too much for the other jerks
So please, my love, do take a seat.
You see I was born a maiden fair
Boys competed to love me
But the sorceress wanted my silken hair
Scalding her hatred was for me.
She came uninvited to my birthday soiree
A special gift in her evil hand.
Her arrival cut short the joyous party
She set before us her diabolical demand.
The books I so loved to read and enjoy
Became the tool of her deed.
She used them as though they were a toy
That only ink I would bleed.
There was one act of mercy small
That's where you come in.
To read me, a man, dashing and tall
His true love I must win.
If you return the love that I feel
Do away this awful spell
Together we can break the seal
Rescue me from endless hell.
A Note to the Reader
<p>I feel your presence invade our story, your roundish face hovering in the air like a reflection on a rippling lake. I can feel the slight guilt that hangs about you as you begin to read; you're procrastinating, trying to ignore whatever chores and duties call to you in your real world. You cannot know what I am feeling as your eyes and mind eagerly devour my life, the adventures I go through to claim the lovely Emmeline. From the moment I was written it was my duty to provide entertainment for anyone in your world who desired it, and I am glad you do not feel the resentment that emanates from me as you read.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I tried to be angry with you, but halfway through my story, I feel I am beginning to read yours. I watch your eyes light up over a well-written passage, feel the wistful envy that courses through you and the restless desire to create something beautiful of your own. Do you know you mime our actions sometimes? You twist your mouth, arch your eyebrow according to the book's description to see if the way it was written makes sense. It makes me smile, inside, where I am&nbsp;not caught up in the actions&nbsp;my story&nbsp;dictates. You are a little annoyed with Emmeline, I can tell. You stare off into space halfway down a page with her on it, and I know you are rewriting her in your mind. I wonder what she'd look like if you had written her, how she would have talked and thought. I hope you'd make her like you.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It is the final chapter, and I can tell you are dissatisfied. I'm sorry, so sorry. The one thing I will ever be able to give you is this story, and I cannot give it the happy ending you were seeking. The words are there, I kiss and embrace Emmeline, but you doubt my sincerity, and you are right. You stare absently at the last page of the book, a little frustrated with the ending but mostly pleased by the story. Your hand&nbsp;grasps the back leaf of the cover and I feel a twinge of panic as you begin to close the book. "I love you," I whisper, and I mean it. You pause for a moment, eyes wide, then shrug as the book closes and shuts me into darkness.</p><p>
</p>