i guess it's good that you're never here. because it's given me the opportunity to fall back in love with some of my past loves that my obsession stole from me. holding a book feels a lot like holding a lover. i don't just hold it, you see. i gently run my finger along the edges of the pages, i take in its scent as if it could cure me of every single thing that pains me, i touch each word to see if they feel any differently, and when i'm done reading it i don't toss it aside with disdain the way you do me. i place it on my chest, i let it feel my warmth and my beating heart and i let it stay right there until i cannot bear to be away from the beautiful pages of my lover anymore. so i open it and only then do i realize how much i truly missed it, how graceful the pages look when they are turned, how it fits in my hand so perfectly, how it fills all of the empty places inside me. but to the book, i never left, my beating heart was always there