The Return of a Small Book

There was once a book

no larger than my hands,

bound in soft brown leather,

its corners rounded

by the passing of many curious fingers.

It was my Poesiealbum,

a quiet traveler among friends.

Everyone wanted to hold it,

to leave a poem,

a drawing,

a sentence that would outlive the moment.

Passing it on was never easy.

Each time I handed it over

felt like letting a small bird

fly out of sight.

Inside lived my childhood—

classmates with uneven handwriting,

sports friends with quick jokes in ink,

family lines written carefully,

as if they knew

words could become time itself.

Then one day

the book was gone.

No farewell.

No explanation.

Just absence.

I searched in drawers,

under beds,

between forgotten school papers.

I asked friends,

looked in classrooms,

in places where laughter once stayed.

Nothing.

Seasons passed.

Two years of quiet acceptance

settled over the loss

like dust on an unused shelf.

I told myself

the memories were gone—

not the living ones inside me,

but the ones written

in other people’s hands.

Then one afternoon

while rearranging old things,

my eyes landed on a small box.

It had been there forever,

since the days when I was small enough

to reach shelves only by standing on toes.

Dust held it like a secret.

I lifted it

only to throw it away.

But something inside shifted—

a faint cracking sound,

like time stretching.

Curiosity is stubborn.

So I opened it.

Inside, wrapped carefully

with a simple ribbon,

rested the book.

My book.

For a moment

the room forgot to breathe.

I untied the bow

with slow fingers

as if the past might escape again.

And when the cover opened,

voices returned—

inked laughter,

awkward poems,

small drawings of suns and hearts.

Years folded back

like pages turning themselves.

Nothing had moved

and yet everything had.

The book had returned

not as something new,

but as something waiting—

patient in the dark,

keeping a childhood safe

until the day

I was ready to find it again.