I Know You've Read So Many Books

Hot summer night, mid-July, when you and I were forever wild—the crazy days, the city lights, the way you would play with me like a child.

April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.

. . .

I still remember the first poem that ever called out to me. It wasn't some masterpiece, but it did win a poetry contest—Terra Incognita it was called—and it called out to me like no other poem had. I don't remember the exact details of it, but I remember the elements of charting new grounds, deceptive sirens, and that flamboyant adventurous spirit rooted in some sense of reality. I wrote a poem too modeled after that, one about my desires and fears and hopes and dreams, all stuffed into a hero's calling across an almost impassible ocean, that archetypal plot.

. . .

It may sound childish (and heaven knows I've been called that a lot), but my favorite book is The Tale of Despereaux. Maybe it's because of the tried-and-true recipe of a knight, a princess, and a villain—but more so, it's because the villain is not quite a villain and the princess is not quite a damsel-in-distress princess, and the knight, oh the knight, he is a knight by virtue and courage alone. Here, even with strong veins of fairy tales spun into the story, things never go as planned and even the smallest thing such as a watercress soup can hurt and heal in an instant.

. . .

Oh tell me why / Do we build castles in the sky? Oh tell me why / All the castles way up high.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams / his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream / his wings are clipped and his feet are tied / so he opens his throat to sing.

. . .

I can't help but cry at the intro of The Titanic, when Jack Dawson wins two tickets to board the eponymous ship. I wish with all my might that I could wave my arms frantically in front of him and snatch the tickets away from him and rip them up so he wouldn't die only days later. But had he not gone on the Titanic, would he have ever met Rose? Is it okay to rob someone of a life-changing romance to save their life? How do authors justify it to themselves when they put their characters in peril for that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Do they cry when their noble heroes and heroines die trying to be rather than merely am?

. . .

In The Kite Runner, the protagonist's father claims that all sin can be simmered down to theft. A lie at its very basis is a theft of someone's undeniable right to truth. But what do they call it when you steal from yourself? Every time I read a book or watch a movie, I am lying to myself. I am telling myself that I live in this world—and I very much wish I did. I wish I could live in this constructed world of perfect coincidences, no matter how much pain that might require (and authors do put their characters through a lot), because some days anything seems better than this emotional cyclone I am in, no matter how calm the eye is.

. . .

"Ah, Sharon Lipschutz," said the young man. "How that name comes up. Mixing memory and desire." He suddenly got to his feet. He looked at the ocean. "Sybil," he said, "I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll see if we can catch a bananafish."