secondhand books
smell better than money
stacked on dusty shelves
their pages folded over
several times
in modesty

people wore
their bindings down
lost in paragraphs
of dreams,
fates and
illusions

these stained
and weathered
pages destroy
every misgiving
every sadness
and every anger
clouding this
reader’s mind
in the mystery of
each yellowed
passage

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat.  Recent work has appeared in Underground Voices,Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Crack the Spine, and Pipe Dream.  Mr. Ridgeway’s chapbookBurn through Today is now available from Flutter Press.