She slides in her headphones.
The cart is filled of freshly read books,
the lucky ones with their pages recently turned,
gently pushed to the upstairs stacks.

Beyond the glass door lies
the world of words. Walls
encase countless characters,
stories that needed to be told.

And now the room belongs to the girl
with the music that lifts her from shelf to shelf
bringing each book back to where it belongs
from her tiptoes to her knees.
Her eyes erode the call numbers
while lyrics and numbers fill her head.

On the bright days a little hip hop has her
dancing down strings of shelves.
Other times she selects slow songs
and imagines the books are a part of her:
the early memories, destined dreams, the everyday thoughts.

Thoughts that thread through the stacks.
She tries to tuck them away before they’re lost
and wishes they could also be
placed so particularly in her mind.