The morning’s first page is not meant to be the last anything.

It isn’t there to wrap up a plot like ribbons and bows on a birthday present.

Loose ends need not be snipped off with a shiny pair of scissors – then tied up all neat, crisp and clean.

No mysteries are yet ready to be solved.

No questions and conflicts resolved within a final burst of climactic ink.

No death-march dirge in the click-clack of keys beneath frenetic, fired fingertips.

No.

The first page needs none of these things.

It asks only for love.

A commitment that you will be there for its next generation of pages:

New kids of college-rule to capture fresh words and the meaning behind why they’re all strung together to form

something bigger than themselves.

The first page demands your promise to keep pages turning

when the going gets tough, as it does in every story,

A faithfulness not to run off and find yourself an easier first page,

one who does not ask so much.

The first page wants you to stay and fill its emptiness,

leave its margins marked up and its corners bent.

It invites you to inhabit its roomy house and live there

long enough to fall in love again.

The first page dreams of the day you lay your head down at night,

and whisper “Good morning. I missed you,” when you wake.