I hold this book within my hands,

Its pages are my contraband,

The words it speaks are just for me,

Its images are all I see,

I cannot look up from the ink,

I do not know that what I think

Is all my own, or what I share,

With this book whose pages dare

Me to dream,

To doubt, to scream,

To know with certainty I can be

Once again just me, just me,

Just what I’ve always known

I could become once I was grown,

The lives in white and black,

In ink and paper,

Are just characters with a lack

Of breath and heart

And strength to start

To live and read,

But each one that’s touched my eyes,

Is now a part of what lies

Inside my body, inside my mind,

I have them all to thank in kind

For what I have become today,

Because we all may go astray,

But will always find our way

Back to what gives us a home,

And for me, that home is where few would look,

It is inside my favorite book.