The history books forgot about us, the bible didn't even mention us

I picked up the leaf from the wet sidewalk and examined the veins on the back.

I had each line memorized perfectly.

I traced them all with the tip of my thumb.

I knew this leaf. I knew it well.

I took it as a treasure.

I locked it away in a box of mine, and told no one of it's whereabouts.

I went back every day, often enough to study the magical tracings.

How could I follow it all exactly with my eyes closed, I knew not.

It was a secret with myself, and secret I didn't understand how I knew.

But one I held it close to me. It gave me all I needed.

I'd think about it often. It would be in the back of my mind.

I'd hold it close treasure this little incentive of knowledge.

Until one day I grabbed my lock box.

Carefully uncovered the lid.

I found my leaf. Destroyed.

Ripped, broken, torn, suffering.

All my own little world vanished.

What I held dear, what was my own special, gone. Forever.

I picked up the pieces as I attempted to string it back together.

A tear falling for every piece as I went along.

Until finally I gave up.

I resisted ever looking in that box again.

Although upon more than one occasion I remembered back to my leaf.

How I knew it perfectly I never discovered.

But what happiness I got from it was evident.

I was thankful for the memory of my own secret.

But torn inside for the loss of what made me myself.