Heartstrings

You were always the one,

The one to sit alone under a tree

A fantasy novel in your lap.

You’d watch the football players,

The cheerleaders,

The music geeks,

The comic book nerds,

But you never felt like you belonged.

So you’d sit under this tree

And you’d read

Your eyes would roam the pages

And the words would

Yank your heart out

Leave it dangling from its heartstrings.

You’d tell the librarian you were sorry

For the tear stains on every other page

And she’d smile and take the book back anyway,

As she gave you a list of the new releases and you

Left her at her desk

Spending the last ten minutes of your lunch hour

Your nose still in a book