yellow pages

One of my favourite
books is often
under my quilt
instead of the wooden shelves
my daddy built.
Every page is
a different yellow
and the corners unsharp,
rather, mellow.
The binding too
isn't very tight and
mummy says it's
a sorry sight.
But the pages,
they're loose
because I hug the
book too close
and the pages
got colour
when days stopped
being duller.
I rubbed off its corners
clutching it to my chest.
I loved it to looking
like a sparrow's nest.
But even all ugly,
I'll carry it everywhere
and read it again and again
despite people who glare.
But now I remember,
at the last 'do',
the lady with white hair
and the gent who
couldn't even see the chair
and the one with
the wrinkly skin
also the one who downed
plenty of gin
and I wonder
did they get loved
that very much,
that instead of pretty,
love left its touch?

- a younger me.