we’re all books — filled with our own stories, written in our own languages, and expressed in the words of our own thought.

as a reader, i’ve read hundreds of books that contain countless stories, from factual to fiction, from dark to humorous.

i’ve read hundreds of books that vary in perspective, full of concepts and ideas that agree or oppose.

i’ve read hundreds of books in multiple conditions, some sturdier and polished while others fragile and overly-used.

every book that i’ve read, every book that i’m still reading, every story i’ve been told, and every chapter i relate to — have all become a part of the book that i am.

yet with the hundreds of books that i’ve read, each filled with pages of its own stories, the book that you are is one unlike any other that i’ve read before.

the book that you are has opened new pages for me, usually unseen to the rest of the world.

the book that you are has introduced me to a new language and has taught me words that allow me to move past some of the barriers of expression existing in me.

the book that you are has shared with me stories that has pushed me to conceptualize ideas unheard of.

the book that you are has filled some of my missing pages — ones that had been ripped away from me — allowing me to understand my own story through a different frame.

the book that you are is often the last one picked in an almost-empty shelf — not because no one wants to read it but simply because everyone chooses not to read a book so complex, so hard to understand, and filled with ideas that contradict and challenge their own.

with no expectation of what this story would become for me, i chose to read the book that you are. and unlike most books that are returned to its shelf or passed on for someone else to read, the book that you are is one that i can’t seem to put down and just simply stop reading.

i see myself as a chapter in your book that is slowly fading away, but i will continue to flip the pages of the book that you are, in hopes that one day i will see a light in the pages so gray.

i continue to flip your pages for as long as you let me because the book that you are is more than just a mere chapter in my story but the background of what my story is and continues to be.

-k.t.