But you couldn’t even read my mind
even if I were an open book, so to speak,
a conduit for expletives and clichés
if I were only, truly, as you imagined

For a split second there you had me
thinking about the person I used to be
tracing papers stacked like glass
a keeper of mental notes and breaks

Even before, beneath, or behind
this opaqueness there once was I:
self-made, then un-made, then un-self.

But for now, here I am simply holding
a hardbound book, saddle-stitched,
whilst cursing another back to the shelf

Still, you couldn’t even read my mind
even if I were to close this chapter,
so to speak.

KJCA