I am bound, leaf on leaf. Human hands have carved me in the still night, long before electricity and motorcars were conceived. Blood, sweat and patience have been the markers of my birth. I am the final charcoal black and I can be swallowed up by the flame of the very candle that helped my maker see. I am a creation, a small thing. Fingertips have brushed my lines and they have passed me on— father to child, lover to lover, stranger to stranger. I am here now. This immediate presence within the stacks of wood that teems with silverfish. I am here and I am silently screaming. A little girl has looked upon my face, unable to read into me. Yet another has torn a part of me away. A keepsake in their pocket. I felt that part of me wash away with the salt of the ocean. I was folded, drowning. One leg was tied together with strong rope, connecting a boulder with my paper soul. Namaste…