The outside is draped in blue cloth and left purposefully blank as a reminder that the inside is what matters most; it’s made from cardboard so firm that it can balance an empty red wine bottle without bending.
The cover is on the inside and consists of a title, a name, and an image. The title is a line stolen from a previous work. The name refers to a writer that died penniless and unknown. The image is derived from a picture of a dive bar mirror in a place where photography was strictly prohibited.
The table of contents lists twenty-eight poems by a writer at the top of his game. They remain intentionally unpublished so that no one but the author controls them. The individual pages are thicker than the blood spent filling them, and bound together with thread sewn by an actual human hand.
This is a physical object known as a book. It cannot be digitally altered by those who find it offensive. It cannot be hidden, or altogether removed, by a search engine that wants to protect you from dangerous ideas. The only way to eliminate the threat it poses is to set it on fire.
There’s no such thing as a copy of this book. Each one is unique and made completely by hand for a specific human being designated in advance. Each one is proof that the soul still exists. Each one is a fuck you to modern life.
Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously.
and what does it smell like when you hold it up and sniff it deeply????