Vanessa Valliere

I’ll Write A Book
September 29, 2014

I’ll write a book called “I Don’t Like That I’m Getting Old But I’m Really Glad I’m Not Dead” and when you open it up it will be full of blank pages for you to fill with pictures of your babies and your husband who still looks great in a swimsuit. You’ll use the little picture corners you can get at expensive craft stores and there will be fabric stitched into some of the pages. When you flip the book over and open it to read the last page – you will start writing about the choices you didn’t make and the amount of times you’ve sat on the landing between the first and second floor of your house, your head in your hands and the tea kettle blaring – wondering where you are and what you even did yesterday. The person you were in high school is still in your parents’ house while you’re here, the wall to wall carpeting rough under your bare legs. It’s summer, it’s summer – you at least remember the season. And the phone will ring in the kitchen and you will get up, finally, to answer it with someone else’s voice.

The book will only be available in hardcover and the back pages will be written fluidly, urgently, frantically, and backwards. No one will bother to put it up to a mirror to decipher it. But they’ll quickly flip through the photos and clippings and happy quotes at the front – thinking of your smile and envying your easy beauty and all of the trips you took to Europe.

Posted by onetimesometimes writings by vanessa s. valliere