Pops

You think you’ve seen her naked because she took her clothes off? Tell me about her dreams. Tell me what breaks her heart. What is she passionate about, and what makes her cry? Tell me about her childhood. Better yet, tell me one story about her that you’re not in.   You’ve seen her skin, and you’ve touched her body. But you still know as much about her as a book you once found, but never got around to opening.

Reading a book is only the first step in the relationship. After you’ve finished it, the book enters on its real career. It stand there as a badge, a blackmailer, a monument, a scar. It’s both a flaw in the room, like a crack in the plaster, and a decoration. The contents of someone’s bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.