FREED VERSE

Only recently did I learn I could read. 
My marginalia fill books of their own: 
    "Meditations on Raskolnikov," 
    "Chomsky's Biggest Fan,"
    "My F-You's to Descartes."
All these pages filled with bleeding ink
      set out to prove one thing: 
                       I 
                    CAN 
                   READ.
But it's pigment wasted
       on a mind half-full.
       A spectator to 'her greatest passion,'
       yet one eye is closed,
       and the other's on the page ahead.
All these pages 
        of life yet to be lived; 
        words yet to be heard; 
        ideas yet to be known. 
Etches spent on letters I could have been reading all along.