Paper Girl

I have watched you fill my hands with memories,
all of them shadows,
some of them
still bleeding.

You have categorized your past and your hurts into simple facts,
and,
that's what I did once too.
Because they weigh less when they are made into paper
for pictures

or even words.

I have watched you open your mouth and let books fall out,
whole
forests worth of compressed, filed, balled-up and feathery papers,
with folders for each year
each lover
each
mistake.

And once, you might have known me.  Once,
I could have let my papers fall from my mouth,
could have let you touch them
read them
put them in piles and color code them.
You would have understood how to handle them, which ones
needed binding, and storing, and which ones
you must never ever dog-ear, or ruin me.

But the paper-system failed me years ago.  They are too easily
burned
and soiled
by inexperienced hands.  Too easily, they are ripped and
folded, hidden in efforts to re-create me.

All of me is flesh.  Heated, breathing, each thing full
of its own blood and rhythm-muscle, each thing
fully boned and cognizant.  
You may have opened file drawers and found nothing but dust,
you may have asked me directly and found me
with no script and
no words and
no pictures to give you
for the answer.

Once, you might have known me.  Once, when I was unguarded and
a little less whole, it would have been easy for me to show you
what was under my skin.

And one day, when you pick up your papers, and find me
just me
or
the small space where I had been,
maybe then you will know me,
or at least understand why you never will.