The Yellow Book

A dusty book lady unopened

Underneath a pile of newer, more exciting plots

The sides of its pages yellowed by time

A yellow that cycles through its gradients

Humming through its shades

As is speaking in a language understood by insects and the insane

Gently persistent in its call to me

To finally open and learn its contents

Stubbornly, I persistent in my avoidance

Despite my lack of desire to read it

It was too tempting not to purchase

At the now gentrified, second-hand market

The beauty of its cover, its pages,

Even its font is a work of art

I arrived home late one night

Still inebriated from attempting to socialize

The book layed open on the kitchen counter

And as the leftovers began to heat up

I relented and began to read

Words and phrases so beautiful, so offensive

So poetic I was enraged that such a thing

Could be produced by the human mind

The flames of the food in the oven began to envelop me

Yet I remained in place, my mind sunk deep into the lake of Hali

Even while my skin melted into the pages

And my bones burned into toxic fumes

The last smell I would breath on Earth