there’s a little part of my bank account i’ve marked off for buying my friends’ novels

i’ll get it signed, of course, my perfect cornered

shiny covered first edition copy, and your name will spill

across the front pages, like a brand. i think

it’ll go up on my bookshelf, in some place of honor, and

i’ll love it forever of course but then

before i’ve even broken its spine i’ll buy your book

again, but this time in as a mass-market paperback, the kind

with the thin pages that almost tear under your fingertips and the

short, squat shape. that’s the one i’ll bring with me when I go to college,

you know, and it’ll end up thrown on my covers and

skated under my bed — the razor edges will get bent, pristine cover

wavy from unexpected rainstorms and misjudged page turns.

i won’t dog-ear the pages, but trust me when i say that there will be

dents in the pages from when I slide my finger in to mark my place.

and when your novel gets published -- when it’s there

in my hands? i think something is going to settle right

in my chest. did you know your world feels like coming home?

i want to meet your characters. i’m convinced i already have.

listened to a song you said you liked the other day and i

could almost see you, hunched over in the middle of the night

typing on your google documents, humming along to the lyrics. i

could almost your characters lip-syncing along to the lyrics.

i was crying a little, but i was at work so i pretended it was just

an aftereffect of my sneezing the minute before.

but you know what, my boss is an author, and i think she understands

just a little bit. shelved one of her books on the library shelf

and i laughed, but then i thought that maybe somebody

felt the same way about her when she got published. like maybe

that book could make you feel warm inside, like maybe

the sun was filling up your whole body with gold.

and when your novel gets published, i want to

document that feeling forever and trap it in the pages of

the novel you made with your own two hands.