I’m not one to judge a book by its cover, but your cover is the only thing you want people to see. When you placed yourself in the palm of my hand, how was I supposed to slip inside your pages and immerse myself in the haunting, complex story that you so obviously hold, and so skillfully hide?

I can’t tear down pages you won’t open for me, and to tell you the truth, that’s the most indecipherable and antagonizing part of it all.

Our story was brief, but frankly, there are a plethora of beautiful stories in life that are shortened to a few transitory lines, that can still instill brilliance into our minds, and leave markings on our hearts.

That was all I wanted from you; a short story full of passion and lust. I didn’t ever see it ending in blissful harmony, but we were both at a point where the climax was within reach, and the possibilities were so tantalizing that every time our eyes would lock, I could hear the whispers of words waiting to be written.

And yet, you never opened up to me. You never recognized my desire to be part of your story, and even if you did, you never wanted that for yourself. You never had the room in your life for a strong female protagonist. Your story revolved solely around you, and its contents of cynicism and hypocrisy would never allow a chapter containing the warmth and tenderness that I, so openly, would have provided.

I knew we were wrong for each other all along, and that’s what gets me about this whole thing. I still can’t recover from the fact that someone like you had the opportunity to have his own part in my wondrous, unabridged romance, and instead stayed bound inside his own treachery.

I have written stories like yours before, and I have certainly read many tales of your desolation. But I am no stranger to horror, or pain, or even romance that ends in a violent and brutal massacre. I have loose-leaf pages you can rip out and shred to pieces, and you still could never take away my ability to understand the tattered mysteries of another.

But you will always remain a mystery to me, despite the fact that we were given a chance to be marvelously intertwined. Despite the fact that we both longed to inscribe a message in our souls that only the other would be able to read. I knew from your foreword that I was someone you desired, and yet you pulled away the chair before I had a moment to sit at your table of contents.

You will always be so charming and attractive to me, but all I can do is put you up on my shelf, out of reach, collecting dust, so you can be the spectacle that you want to be in this world, without being touched or influenced by my fantasies. Without so much as an illustration on a single page for me to add color to. Simply a beautiful cover, that will eventually be forgotten and worn away, remaining almost completely blank inside.

You can hide up there, sanctioning people to glorify your exterior, and continue to skim through life. As long as when my pages are antiquated, they have left their marking on someone who was wasn’t too ignorant or afraid to comprehend the literary gift this universe has so graciously handed them.