Library Dryad

This poem first appeared in the May/June 2018 issue of Cicada magazine and was written for a creative writing class at Boston University.

How must it feel
To be peeled,
           Pulped,
                        Pressed,
Perfectly breathless,
No voice to protest,
Stamped with stories
That are not your own.
Too little of you left
To feel your sisters’ touch.
They too scream,
But their cries are scripted:
We lived in the gaps
Between the stories,
They weep,
Or simply:
Once upon a time.
It must be enough for you, now,
To lure the curious
Deep into a forest
Of a different kind—
And long for the days
When you devoured them
And not the reverse.