When I Stopped Turning Pages

She asked me for a recommendation.

I couldn't give her one.

Just stood there, frozen in conversation,

unable to name anything worth running toward.

My nightstand has a stack—

books with bookmarks abandoned where I quit.

Chapter three. Chapter five. I lack

the discipline to commit.

She waited for me to answer.

Then she recommended something instead.

I thanked her, but the cancer

of my failure spread.

I won't read it. It'll go

on the stack with the others.

Another year of this show,

another proof that I'm no lover

of books anymore, just someone

who buys them and leaves them to wait.

She probably thinks that I'm done.

Maybe I am. Maybe it's too late.

I used to know how to commit,

used to feel the story pull me under.

Now I just avoid the sight

of pages and their wonder.