You showed me a blank page and said - let’s start afresh, write a story - you and me.

Blank is beautiful

Blank is boisterous 

because, now, anything can be

But every foreword needs a back story

So show me your memoir

the half torn pages, the upturned corners

the soup spills that marred the words 

the tear stains that blurred the text

Let me go back to the parts you reread, past and present

Tell me why you still revisit them and when you stopped

Don’t leaf over the crimson tinges and don’t excuse them for paper cuts

Loose spines don’t scare me, blank books do