“Never judge a book by its cover”
but isn’t it the book I try to cover?
The words are blurry, the letters odd
the cadence unstable and flawed
So I play a game of hide and seek,
chasing the only authentic me
yet bury the unwanted freak
Isn’t that a very strange choice?
as I’m the only one to never escape my voice
Perhaps that’s why I prefer to keep
my slightly rotten pages sealed…
Libraries are public and free
books get read, thoughts are told
spines get broken, lies get sold
And so I prefer to be in a bookstore
hoping I get bought and kept
whether I’m crime or mystery
even though I’m neither, just poetry.
About the author
Anastázie Köhlerová is a fourteen-year-old grammar school student from Prague, Czech Republic. Her poem a performative girl in a bookstore won the Milena Jesenská Award, a competition for high school students who write in a language other than their mother tongue. The talented young poet is also fluent in German and French.