The Banned Book Club Reprise Poem by March Nicks

How dangerous can a book really be?
Words that can be smudged
Pages as fragile as a porcelain doll
Ripped, crinkled and wrinkled, their ink unrecognizable

And yet, we fear them
As if they are weapons
Primed and at the ready
For any moment

Words are the arrows
Armed on a page
To penetrate the mind
Once the cover opens.
Blasting ideas through
The open wound
That might change
The very essence of our being.

As a young child,
I felt like my words meant nothing.
No matter how loud I tried to scream,
It felt like no one could hear me.
It was in pages I began to find myself
And understand how I fit in this world.
I no longer needed to scream
Instead writing paved the way
For others to understand my thoughts.
The words were clear
And for the first time I felt free.
Free from the bondage of conformity
Free from the expectations of others
Free from the prison of my own mind.

Here's the thing about books,
They give us courage.
Ideas and thoughts that might have never been heard
Suddenly hold space in the world.
They open the door for imagination,
A endless stream of possibilities.
They encourage us to think,
Putting the power back
Into the hands of those
Who have never
Screamed loud enough
To be heard
Over those
With not much
Say at all.

So ban the books.
Pull them from the shelves.
Hide the thoughts of those before us.
Burn the pages out in the streets.

I pray those flames will only fuel
The embers of our future writers.
That their ideas will burn
Bright enough to light the way
Into tomorrow.

For the poets
Authors
Journalists
Playwrights
Artists
Writers
And free thinkers who came before
We will not let your words be silenced.
We thank you for laying down the blueprints
And showing that words are powerful and can change the world.

We will continue to fight for free thought
That more children
Will see that their words mean something
And that they should continue to write.