i only started collecting a library, because, would you believe it, my local library was a pauper in rags and tatters; apologies for omitting necessary diacritic marks, the whiskey was ******* on icecubes to a shrivel.*

ernest hemingway, e.m. forster, mary shelley,
aesop, r. l. stevenson, jean-paul sartre,
jack kerouac, sylvia plath, evelyn waugh,
chekhov, cortazar, freud, virginia woolf,
philip k. ****, dostoyevsky, aleksandr solzhenitsyn,
oscar wilde, malcolm x, kafka, nabokov,
bukowski, sacher-masoch, thomas a kempis,
yevgeny zamyatin, alexandre dumas,
will self, j. r. r. tolkien, richard b. bentall,
james joyce, william burroughs, truman capote,
herman hesse, thomas mann, j. d. salinger,
nikos kazantzakis, george orwell,
philip roth, joseph roth, bulgakov, huxley,
marquis de sade, john milton, samuel beckett,
huysmans, michel de montaigne, walter benjamin,
sienkiewicz, rilke, lipton, harold norse,
alfred jarry, miguel de cervantes, von krafft-ebing,
kierkegaard, julian jaynes, bynum porter & shephred,
r. d. laing, c. g. jung, spinoza, hegel, kant, artistotle,
plato, josephus, korner, la rochefoucauld, stendhal,
nietzsche, bertrand russell, irwin edman,
faucault, anwicenna, descartes, voltaire, rousseau,
popper,  heidegger, tatarkiewicz, kolakowski,
seneca, cycero, milan kundera, g. j. warnock,
stefan zweig, the pre-socratics, julian tuwim,
ezra pound, gregory corso, ted hughes,
guiseppe gioacchino belli, dante, peshwari women,
e. e. cummings, ginsberg, will alexander, max jacob,
schwob, william blake, comte de lautreamont,
jack spicer, zbigniew herbert, frank o'hara,
richard brautigan, miroslav holub, al purdy,
tzara, ted berrigan, fady joudah, nikolai leskov,
anna kavan, jean genet, albert camus, gunter grass,
susan hill, katherine dunn, gil scott-heron,
kleist, irvine welsh, clarice lispector, hunter thompson,
machado de assisi, reymont, tolstoy, jim bradbury,
norman davies, shakespeare, balzac, dickens,
jasienica, mary fulbrook, stuart t. miller,
walter la feber, jan wimmer, terry jones & alan ereira,
kenneth clark, edward robinson, heinrich harrer,
gombrowicz, a. krawczuk, andrzej stasiuk, ivan bunin,
joseph heller, goethe, mcmurry, atkins & de paula,
bernard shaw, horace, ovid, virgil, aeschyles,
rumi, omar khayyam, humbert wolfe, e. h. bickersteth,
asnyk, witkacy, mickiewicz, slowacki, lesmian,
lechon, lep szarzynski, victor alexandrov, gogol,
william styron, krasznahorkai, robert graves,
defoe, tim burton, antoine de saint-exupery,
christiane f., salman rushdie, hazlitt, marcus aurelius,
nick hornby, emily bronte, walt whitman,
aryeh kaplan, rolf g. renner, j. p. hodin, tim hilton... etc.

I stand still in this room, to look across at you, and grin.
You don't have to understand what this means...
You make me re-evaluate my values.
I'm not sure what this feeling is without the butterflies...
And the heart-stops... and the blushing cheeks.
I don't know this girl who lets you scrunch her face.
And laughs... and plays... and doesn't plan every single second...
I don't think you understand the significance,
Of my words, of my relaxed disposition...
I don't look at clocks when I am around you.

I don't need your affections every minute...
Co-dependency has become enjoyment of company.
Sleeping alone isn't empty, next to you is simply a perk.
Sleeping with you, not a demand, but a pleasure.
Who is this girl, grinning at you across the room...
Letting you tickle her sides... telling you truths
TRUTHS... I don't think you understand the significance of that word...
Of MY words. There are no walls in my words. (only in my chest)
And "I Love You's" aren't spilling from my lips.
And I don't think we understand the significance of that.

I fall hard, blindly, way too quickly.
But I'm not falling right now. I'm standing here, eyes WIDE open.
I see all of you, and I wait... and patience is not a characteristic of mine.
And I don't think you understand the significance of this...
I feel something is happening here...
A realization; one I had read somewhere in a Jonathan Safran Foer novel.
About falling in love so ordinarily, that you begin to think it isn't love at all...
But something much more ordinary.
And.. this is different... but what it is evades me.
I can't diagnose this as "the real thing," because I only know what the "real" thing is not...

Being away from you isn't painful, it just isn't preferred.
I like that I don't have to hold my breath when we're apart.
But, I feel my facade fall away when I walk through your door.
As if there is no need for pretenses in a room with you...
I'm not that girl, and I don't want you to think I am...
I want to use big words, and giggle at their superfluity.
Let you laugh at my pretentiousness- a misnomer- as I'm not faking anything at all.

I like that I look at you... and I don't know exactly what you're thinking.
And I don't think you understand the significance of that...
Control, let go... and I'm not terrified...
And I don't feel like a half, not quite a whole...
But, I'm learning how to be, and who to be...
And I simply have the pleasure of having you along for the journey.

I'm afraid I don't understand the significance of...
    these words, of the realization that you will read them...
        that you will try to qualify each adjective... and understand each verb...
And dissect me...
    and I will try to explain, a kindness I so rarely attempt...
        and I might not make any sense, and I might not know how you feel...
And... I might just be fine with not knowing.

I might just stand, and grin, and not tell you why.
But, not for not knowing,
But... for not needing to understand.

Yet.