Changing Hands

It was a book that he had given me,
Old, but intact, filled with the anxieties of reading it for the first time.
It was beautiful, poetry or prose, it was all music to me,
I wanted to share it,
Tell the world such beauty exists.
What is the point of knowledge if you hoard it away in secret?

So I gave it to my friend, who gave it to another
Changing hands, the book aquired new character,
It began to tell a story not within its pages.

Every time it would come back injured,
Pages loose, cover scored,
Coffee rings
Drops of midnight oil;
It would be taped,
Restored,
welcomed back and then released again into the world.

After many years of travel
Across the globe, as it were,
The volume returned to me
Tired.

It seems it had managed to find its way to the one who had set it in motion
Even before I had.
Coming to me from where it had before
I instantly recognized marks
Marks of memories, soiled
of longing.