Books are my best friend

Telling me stories

Teaching me lessons

Letting me escape.

And for as much as they do for me

I have done little for them in return.

Instead

I wear on their spines

Dog-ear their pages

Smaller books become the bookmarks for bigger ones

Old tears mix with new ones

Staining already wrinkled paper

Over enthusiastic page turning

Has resulted in more than one unfortunate tear.

So to books everywhere

I’m sorry

I apologize for the abuse

And I’d promise it will never happen again

But that would mean never reading again

Never cradling the weight of a book

Never breathing the scent of new and old pages

And quite frankly

That will never happen

I will try to be more careful

But no guarantees

So to books everywhere

Thank you

For everything

~Quill