Never ask a reader  

Which is their favorite book

Because within them is much more than words

For those with a heart willing to look

You’ll find yourself within the words

And hidden between lines

Of a story so much bigger than yours

One to last through time

Within the prose and tale of one 

You learned to face your fears

And split between the pages of another

You’ve learned love can last for years

You see the characters before you

In their beauty and their pain

And begin to truly understand 

How both can be the same

What many see as faults

Are gorgeous in your eyes

Because you’ve seen how far they’ve come

And their struggle simply to rise

You begin to see how maybe it’s true

That the things about yourself you doubt

Are the parts of a character that you love the most

And can't imagine them without

They were there with you in the darkest times

Holding the pieces of your heart

And helping you realize their beauty

How shattered pieces still make art

So my heart is broken into fragments

Split between each thought 

Of the characters that taught me that 

I’m more than what I'm not

I am more than just one word

That lives within a spine

More than one chapter in a novel

Or a section of a line

I am whole because of all of it

Even the messy parts of me

But the friends who finally taught me that

Aren’t the kind that you can see…