She reads her books-

Strokes them and calls them pretty names

Curls up beside them, but…

Occasionally, she'll tell her real friends jokes-

Just so they'll laugh,

Sometimes, she'll dance

Just for applause

But mostly, just to escape

From that ink world that doesn't laugh with

And yet when her friends call her crazy, weird

She'll run back to that

Printed world were no one laughs at her

She wishes in those in-between moments

That this wasn't her

That she did not need attention so badly

That they would realize her façade

She wishes…ah…

I've played this role to well.