Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
I told the doctor
my heart felt like a flip phone
set to vibrate
in the back pocket of my jeans—
buzzing between spine
and tenth-grade desk,
shaking my bones
like a train no one saw coming—
except me.

I could feel my pulse
gathering its coat, like it had somewhere to be.
He said I was within diagnostic range.
He said I was presenting as stable.

I said I felt like a girl
screaming
inside a library.

They said:
What a beautiful metaphor.
I said:
It’s not a metaphor.
It’s a girl.
She’s in there.
She’s still screaming.

And they nodded,
said I seemed self-aware—
like that settles that.

They wrote “no cause for concern”
in my file.
The room was quiet.
The library was loud.

My heart is still vibrating.
I feel it—
right there, between spine and desk.

No one picks up.
JM Romig Apr 5
When they let us back into the building
two days later,
it felt like visiting the library of Pompeii.
our world, frozen in a single
unthinkable moment

We all did it
Silently, and instinctively,
we recapped the borrowed pens,
recycled the scrap paper
and reshelved the stray novels
abandoned by our fleeing patrons

We dusted off tables
We checked the bookdrops
We scanned the public spaces
cross-referenced our gut reactions
with a checklist of trauma responses

We took note of the missing books
by the doors, where the blood was -
absence, often the most visible
evidence of tragedy
We took deep breaths
We pushed in chairs

We ******* loose ends
on our plans for next month
We sent emails to tell folks
their classes were cancelled for the week
We gathered
listened and talked
We comforted one another

We went on doing all the small,
important, invisible work we do -
through our grief,
through our fear,
through our trauma

- for the people
I wrote this piece in the aftermath of a shooting at my place of work.
ALI Feb 28
I orbit like a planet banished from its path,
carrying cosmic dust in my pockets and the world’s secrets dangling like dead stars.
I did not know who I was… but they knew I read the screams of the nebula.
I know everything… yet I do not know when I was born, or why moons shatter when I breathe!

I am the forgotten library that holds the end of all books.
My pages fall like meteors, each leaf crying out:
“Who will rearrange the idea before it collapses into a black hole?”
I carried the names of infinities on a school trip,
and when asked about myself, I gasped for a lost answer trapped between my ribs.

I speak the language of the impossible,
translate the silence of stars into trembling rays,
hear the dialogues of power and annihilation at a table of tangled timelines.
They say, “He knows the hour of mountains’ collapse before they crumble!”
But I cannot stop a tear as it falls from my eye.

I dance with spectral equations in night’s laboratory,
mix pain and galaxies in a vial,
search for the meaning of “I” between an equation slipping from my memory
and a blurred childhood image swarming with asteroids.
Even the map I drew of myself unravels into planetary chaos—
each time I point to a place, I whisper, “Here I was… or here I will be!”

The universe mocks me in its way,
sends coded messages in nebula hues:
“When will you learn you’re just an echo of a sound never uttered?”
I answer with a scream fossilized in space:
“I am the one who wrote the questions before answers were born!”

I discover I exist only when I am lost.
Each time I near the riddle’s end, a thousand new labyrinths bloom.
I walk a road of shattered pasts, only to reach a future
wearing the same question’s altered face:
“Are you the hero, the author, or a stray letter in eternity’s novel?”

At the chapter’s end…
I wear the universe’s skin like a threadbare coat,
let my questions hang like drowning stars,
and vow tomorrow I’ll tear off every mask.
But…
who can shed their own self twice?
This Arabic poem is a profound, introspective exploration of identity, existence, and the cosmic unknown.
Heidi Franke Jan 11
Where you stand now,
can be moved.
It's either you or
the ground.
Is it light you seek
or darkness?
If you remain immovable
Like that thing in the street,
Tripping, your face will meet
The ground, hard.

Lay ****** and bruised,
Defiant as the cement
That slapped your face.
It gets dark real fast
When all you hear is the mold
That lays you to rest.

Be alert and aware like
A library door.
Possibly your unnoticed
Life is awakened by
Words that wrap you with
History and comfort as if
Every minute is the opening
From a wrapper of your
Favourite candy. Live
In the trace of  light
Where you stand.
Listened to The New Yorker on YouTube. Public Defender” follows the work of Heather Shaner, a lawyer representing January 6th rioters, who works to confront America’s political divisions with empathy."
Jia En Jan 9
So the thing
About being
In a library
That really,
Really
Bugs me
Is the silence
Because sometimes
(Most times?)
Quiet is great, right?
Or at least until
You accidentally ****
The vibe by making
A sound or taking
A quick, far-too-noisy
Walk to shelf 23
And like with most lists
This one is non-exhaustive
And so yeah, is it dumb of me
To lowkey
Be
Afraid to enter a library?
i used to think i was fearless
Trinkets Nov 2024
we have an understanding
you and I
carefully tiptoe around

no touch waltz game of mirrors
and pretending
we do not see
attempts to follow or to lead
all focus on to hide
enough to please believe

I am worthy of the dance
  

inner thoughts printing press
working overtime
writing stories variations
hundreds thousands
locked up overflowing
when any one would do

finding myself
grasping lighters
hiding in my pockets
desperately wanting
something real
a fire all consuming
destroying what is me
to burn all past beliefs

I would grab old stories
by the handful crumpled paper
dismiss all for just one truth
throw them all to fuel flames
for just one scribbled piece
of any story from you


answers in a conversation
surrendered for imagined somethings
the nature of human loneliness
reading only what there is to read

there never would be fires
or firework displays

no darkened smoke
no burning out
no disappointment

just endless inner libraries in decay
Steve Page Nov 2024
I had a spell in the library.
It wasn’t a long one,
but it’s never the length of the spell that matters.
It’s the work that goes into it.
It’s the focus,
the book work,
the practice.

I had a spell in the library.
It was magic.
I volunteer in our local library in Hanwell, West London. I re-shelved a Harry Potter book today - it got me thinking.
The Wicca Man Sep 2024
‘Excuse me…’
‘Shhh …’
(Whispering)
‘Excuse me…’

Steely-grey eyes behind
Horn-rimmed glasses glare at me
And a blank piece of paper
Is passed across with an irritated nod
Toward the pen *** on the counter.

I reach to the ***,
Select a nondescript ballpoint pen,
And write.

Passing the paper back, I wait …

Steely-grey eyes behind
Horn-rimmed glasses scans the page.
An audible ‘tut’ escapes her lips
And a finger beckons me to follow…

We walk past aisles of fiction and fact
Coming to a halt at section 020.

Steely-grey eyes behind
Horn-rimmed glasses waves imperiously
At the shelves in front of me,
Turns, and walks away.

Scanning the books
I find the title I requested:
‘Library Etiquette’.

I smirked as I pulled the book from the shelf,
Returning to the desk
And steely-grey eyes behind
Horn-rimmed glasses.
I'm sure this is not a stereotype of the modern librarian ...
Carlo C Gomez Mar 2024
~
Who can circumnavigate Avalon's depository and the palpable swoop down toward earthier terrain?

Yet, here I am.

Where is your gravity taking me, Kahn?

This building is an invitation, and I am humbled in this sense of arrival. The books are stored away from the light. So a man with a book goes to the light, the serenity of light.

And therein lies the hidden meaning.

But you won't let it become just a building; you want it to remain much a ruin; it's all somehow sinister in its celebration.

Occasional distraction is as important in reading as concentration.

And I'm reading between the lines in a corner carrel, looking out at academic crop circles; I grapple with each texture: it's this combination of imposing austerity and weathered familiarity that you seize upon to make your current landscape hospitable.

This building is an instrument, creates a sound in my head akin to music; and this music remains a glowing source of solitude, all driven by a desire to be hidden but sought after—a celebration of all things lost and unnamed.

Here I find closure by opening a book.
~
An ode to architect Louis Kahn's Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire. It is the largest secondary school library in the world.
Next page