A Book of Poems

I have a book of poems
that my father gave me one year for Christmas
while I was still in high school
and it taught me to like reading things that didn’t always make sense
to me
because the poems were for people who had been through the shit
and I had only been through high school

I took the book with me to college
and let a girl borrow it because I wanted her-
believing that women are attracted to intellect
and she marked her favorite poems
with bobby pins and pieces of paper

I still have it to this day
now when I read it the poems all make sense
and it makes me happy because I understand them
and it makes me sad because I understand them