The wooden shelf was cracked and warped

Dropping torn paperback novels on to the mess

Of board games piled below.

Those I could understand. Those I knew

The dog-eared sea charts, full of out of date islands

I did not know.

I would run my unmarked fingers along their

cracked spines, glance over my shoulder,

The quickly pull one to me.

I could smell salt as my little hands lifted and leafed through pages.

The islands were like stationary clouds, taking the shape

Of any animal I assigned them.

I would sit for a time, tracing my fingernail over the wash of simple blue

And the ornate compass rose before growing bored with the vastness

Of the sea and sailing back to the bookshelf to return my family's chart.

As odd as the ocean is

the diagrams of diaphragm and beating hearts

Were stranger.

I skimmed through sketches of bright colored lungs,

Cross sectioned brains and a working leg brace.

Were humans meant to see the secrets of our own engineering?

Read essays on our breathing, our beating, and blood?

At the age of five, I sure as hell wasn't

Or so my parents said as they pulled me away.

A/n: so this is obviously NOT my best work but it was fun to wright so yay!