“Books were safer than other people anyway.” Neil Gaiman

 

So I buried myself in my books,

Learning, early on,

That people were sometimes poison

And could damage the soul.

My books became my friends

In a world confused by rules

Even now I find bits of my childhood:

A feather here, a flower there,

A leaf pressed flat among the pages.

Those are my friends,

The ones that keep me from screaming

When people get too much.