Book of Me

Book of Me

Unfinished novel with dogeared pages folded down to mark
momentous happenings, oft reread, pondered upon.
Convoluted plot, but, as happens in a book,
one thing led to the next.
Memorized, like a poem in school--
I can recite the journeys traveled.
Finger on a map tracing the route,
the deteors, the destinations.
Can't change anything. Can't rewrite a paragraph.
Nor would I given the option.
We go back to favorite pages,
repeat meaningful phrases.
Christmas Past mirrors what is yet to come.

The current page: full of proof marks, scratch-outs.
A safety net where none existed before allows
for unschedualed fandangos,
for spinning myself dizzy
knowing I will be caught, held close.
New characters introduced
merge and meld with
foreshadowed meetings and muddled coincidences.
Christmas now is ornamented and
reflected in our tree
decorated with memories of yesteryear
and dreams
of what tomorrow's page will read.

Tomorrow, labyrinthine,
meanders into next month, next year,
into plans for the final third of my story.
I cannot see beyond the current page
nor gauge when my watch might break.
Youth decries mortality: Time will never run out.
A grandmother clock can always be rewound.

The other main character is an enigma.
Adopted. There is no rereading a book never written
for us to read. That history is lost:
DNA does not tell the whole story
and we are left with unanswered questions.
Like starting a book in the middle,
where the backstory's pages have been ripped out.

Our companion volumes,
two perspectives of a whole,
muddle through: each hoping
for slightly different endings.
Yet, as in the very best of books,
don't want it to end.
Christmases will come as the tale unfolds
full of glee unwrapping a new toy:
the living of the next chapter.

Until the words run out
and I turn to the final page.