Be Gentle With Yourself

  If you ever find yourself outside of a used bookstore, do not pass go. Open the door and happen upon stories, treasure maps, keys to other worlds, and maybe an old cat named Frank wandering the corridors. You’ll know it’s the right place based on the unorganized shelves and grungy carpet, the smell of dust, life, and letters will whirl under your nostrils. That same dust will hang limply in the air under the stream of sunlight in the stained windows. You will be picked, called out and born here. As you walk silently down each aisle, you won’t really need to read the title. And if you do, do it at the end. If you let yourself feel it, your soul will tell you. Drift a finger over the hump of each spine, each worn and scarred body, and when it says stop, Listen. Grasp it gently, and no matter what, smell it first. The old ones always call to me most. So many hands where mine lies now, so many shelves, tables, and beds it laid on before resting here. There are so many lives it saw, with