Forget Me Not

by Karissa Kinword

“I’ve met you a thousand times then, Book Girl,” he says. “In a thousand stories.”

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.’ I wrote right here in the margin.” He points to the open book at the scribbled ink. “It says, ‘She and I love in ways that can’t be explained, bottled, written, or imitated. Our love is for the stars.’”

Silas doesn’t love me like all the characters love their counterparts in these books—because it’s more than that. He loves me through them, in pieces, like patchwork on a quilt, a stitch here, a pattern there, never completely sewn together. Like he hasn’t yet read his favorite story, but he’s constantly trying.

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

“Don’t ever apologize for living the fullest life you could find. If not for that, you wouldn’t be here with me right now.”

“There lies my greatest supposition, Birdie. But if the universe can conspire, why can’t it also leave us clues?”

If I’m a book, then he is all the lines between every sentence. He’s the curve of each letter reaching out to kiss the next, the swooping song of every italic, the pausing breath of well placed punctuation. I am the words, but he is the way in which you read them.

“I don’t need to read a different story anymore, Birdie, because ours is my favorite one.”