I use to wonder why I read books.

The impulse, I got.

It's a good deal easier

to cope

with no purpose for living

by reading stories

where purpose is handed to our hero

on the first page.

It's easy to ignore anxiety

when your best friend

is busy slaying dragons.

You don't have to think  

about what people think

when your narrator

tells you exactly what they think.

I didn't need to exist

because with the crack of a spine

I won't anymore.

With the crack of a spine

I would be no more than a shadow;

an audience

to a larger story.

One filled with purpose,

and absent of little boys

who failed to fill the page  

of a throwaway chapter

in someone else's book.

I've started reading again.

I've lost purpose,

feel like I'm standing in the middle

of entirely the wrong place.

I feel as if my happiness peaked;

not because I can't be that happy again,

but because I can never not be this sad again

I used to think I was the main character,

but I'm not even a supporting player,

my arc didn't interest the novelist

so he cut back what made it engaging

and gave it all away

to more promising figures

those who could survive

grow in the world that he made,

not just exist in it.

I lost the girl,

lost the kingdom,

lost the quest,

and there's no book  

that ends like mine

and ends with happy endings.

So I'll read yours,

and his,

and hers,  

and theirs,

and whoever's books I have to read.

Someone else can read my book

I've grown tired of the story.