diary of a book

     i am neglected. at times i sleep, i ponder while i lay stacked on this shelf. i remember when my popularity soared. readers checked me out and kept me past my due date of return, choosing rather to pay late fees than part with my pages. many and varied where they who stared transfixed into my multi faceted faces over many years' time. i lulled them to sleep. i transfixed them with splendor. i sent them far and away to places of mystery and adventure while some sat on a chair, the beach, under a willow tree, beside fountains, others upon their beds. some read me silently, some out loud to themselves or to listeners. i was intimately held, at times clutched and fondled. some paid me compliments, swearing oaths that they could not put me down. i loved the sensual slow turning of my pages, while the frenzied quick turning by those who read quickly, or searched my passages raised my heart rate. there were readers who slept with me open faced against their bosom, others with my face against theirs. some sniffed my skin. some breathed of my cellulose scent deeply into their lungs. those that smoked infused the scent of tobacco to become part of me. such scents as these along with that of reader's own will forever cling to me adding to my allurement, adding subtlety of mystique and intrigue to my existence notwithstanding, (allow me to digress but for only a moment) - the worse atrocity committed against me - those infamous dog-eared folds, those terrible creases none could erase. 

     it would be easier to tolerate these infractions that blemish the likes of my species if i were not so neglected. yes, neglected by the populace who's merged with technology's electronic boon for the illuminated page borne by fabulous pixels of crystal and plasma screens. they have surpassed my popularity. instant downloads, shares, transmittance on the caliber of terabytes and growing by exponential leaps - line on, or off line. proliferation of the data age generated and propelled by multi-apps' devices' conveyances.

     oh yes, i will not lie. i am envious. i yearn to be touched again, carried aloft into far places myself again, not by wifi as is the case with my kin and even my clones, but by you dear reader. with your hands, your eyes and mind, i have wings. without you, i am lifeless. your eyes will revive me even as the dew revives the dried moss. come feast your eyes upon me. behold my scripted magic, that symbiotic synergy alchemyed of author's mind into my print. i yearn for you and i to become one, shall we say, interface?  oh, won't you come pick me up?