Reading stories

You think reading 

stories 

is not worth the hassle, 

but we’re made 

of them. 

The pictures you hold 

in your gloomy head 

that compose the narrative 

of your life 

and give it sense 

are a story. 

That ethereal memory, 

at the back of your eyes, 

of holding onto her 

at a day’s end 

it’s fiercely recalled 

now 

as a story. 

How your parents met. 

How you came to be. 

How those before 

those before 

were, 

is told as a story. 

The plain anecdote. 

The stinging complaint. 

The trivial recount 

with which 

you explain yourself 

to your friends:

all things 

experienced 

owe their hold 

of the soul 

to storytelling.