The Notebook

The Notebook

Small and black

A little worn in

Its papers were swollen

Like it had been written on in the bathtub

A pencil was crammed into the soft leather

Where it had split

The notebook was held together by a thick rubber band

The kind that broccoli is banded together with

Malcolm sat in the bus stop waiting for the people who rode the bus to get picked up

He did not like to share the space with them

He considered it his bedroom

Mostly because that is where he slept when it rained

But also because he liked to imagine that he had a place to hang posters

And the bus stop had three walls

He pretended he would someday hang a fancy fabric from the ceiling

Like he heard college kids did in their dorms

Malcolm was relieved when the bus came

And his guests left

As he laid back down

To soak up the warmth of the seats from the recently departed

He saw the book

He tried to hail the bus

Malcolm took nothing that did not belong to him

If he could help it

The bus kept on

Leaving him to stay and protect it

He thought it must be a diary

So he would not read it

Unless he had to

To find who owned it

So he could return it

It did not take long

To give up on the owners return

Malcolm was drawn

And he was visually affected by the need

To open the notebook

Like an itch of an addict

As the craving was upon them

And the craved was sitting unguarded

In front of them

He needed to know

He justified his need to know

How could he know

How to return the book

How to find the owner of the book

How to be a person who came to own such a book

Such a book

Loved

Held closely and softened

Leather was skin

And loved skin softens

And well worn pages are like a mind

One loved with conversations

Between a boyfriend

A girlfriend

A mother

A son

Maybe a father, who teaches children

Not to fly to close to the sun

Or to be gracious when you’ve won

Malcolm would not know

Any of these things

And maybe the book could serve

As his Book of Five Rings

Maybe Malcolm could learn

How to be good

Good at all things

With this books help

Maybe he

Could eventually

himself

Discover he was the good that god brings

Malcolm could of course not help but look

For this soft leather bound conversation

Was now his very own

His life's instruction in a book

He thought it better

To wander down the street

To the park he used to wonder

About how things worked

He took his seat

In the nook between the stone

Where his sword would someday be

And the tree he slept under

From noon till ‘bout three

Each day when it was warm

Though it was cold today

Malcolm opened the book to his future

And his past slithered away

It was all he could imagine

He read it

Cover to cover

It was all he had yet to imagine

He must read it over

Malcolm was smitten

In love with the words

For they were his words now

His wisdom to give

And now Malcolm can not remember

Who said them first

For Malcolm was the fountain

Leaving books of water

For those dying of thirst.

Malcolm took the bus

To and from work each day

He held his diary close to him

Between hand and heart each way

Malcolm’s life was never

What a person would think it would be

For Malcolm experienced life

And recorded it for free

One day he noticed

On the stop between destinations

A young man who could have been him

So long ago

Forgotten

Malcolm tried to get his attention

But the young man was dreaming

A day full of possibilities

Malcolm caught his bus

But laid down his worn and weary thoughts

Next to the young man

To begin his next life

And Malcolm drove on

Forever young, and gone