Torn

Damn it all to hell. It's one thing to be drunk and to tear apart friendships, romances, blood ties. It's another to rip the jacket of an innocent book. No invisible mending can repair it; the torn cover reproaches endlessly: "you were careless. you guarded not. you protected not that which you valued." The words inside are forever the words of the broken spine, the foxed edging, the endleaf signed "To Mildred, knowing you will never read": Good but never fine. Loved but never treasured. The book unbound, with no rebinding possible. Take care, reader. Some things cannot be undone.