Brightly Burning

There’s an echoing thud left over from the impact Brightly Burning makes as I hurl it against the wall. The book slithers to the floor as if ashamed for the sobs it has pulled from my chest. I hate it, I hate Mercedes Lackey, I hate myself for each immersive layer of empathy the book has taken from me.
To unwrite the written pages would be a cool mercy to my chapped heart, but there are no unwriters. There are readers, and there are writers. To hope for more would be the most hateful of all.
Cheeks overripe and eyes Brightly Burning from tear-salt, I slowly pick up the book. I slide it onto the shelf, pressing the cover closed despite the crackles of protest from a few bent pages. There it will sit, written and read, a hateful talisman of a book’s ability to hurt yet also a relic of my own ability to be hurt, and by extension, to feel.