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Olivia Catherine Jan 2021
Wakeful and aware of my feet against the floor,
Alive in a vast labyrinth of precious tomes,
their pages soft beneath my fingertips,
Their covers defensively misleading.

How beautiful, really, to be able to read them,
Be it a chapter, a page, or even a few lines.
Reading deep into precious texts
that don’t know they’re being read.

Unaware of the stories, written out in neurons, told through fluttered lashes,
And the twitch of a nose,
Pictures painted by the wide sweeping motions of searching irises,
blind to their own vibrant illustrations.

Each story searches for its conclusion
within the pages of another,
Trying to navigate itself through an index
That is not its own.

Perhaps someday I’ll find such beauty in my own weathered pages,
when my spine has split and my text has faded,
When I am a complete person built of indented paragraphs,
an entire soul typed out in times new roman.
Grey Rose Nov 2020
I don't usually get stolen by temptation like this
But I would do anything to be devoured by this feeling
From the cover alone.. your every word overflows into my heart
Oh the Intrigue
I just want to know more than what your surface reveals
Oh, how I know your story will be riveting and passionate

The colors, they tell me
And gossip your characters into my ear
The feats they're capable of 
And the depths your philosophy stem from
I'd like to write them unto my wrists
And preach to everyone I pass the journeys you took me on

Oh, dear if you dare to open yourself unto me
I will not resist falling deeper into you
Your pages are limited
So whilst you have me.. while I'm within your folds
Envelop me into your narratives
And I will follow you on any journeys you seek

Don't get me wrong.. I don't usually lose sleep over something like this
But the lies and tales you tell me
Make me want to see this through to the end

And I desire not to be caught
Whilst I rummage through the exposed chapters of your epics sagas
Of our epic sagas
Not until .. When the last page turns
Before the cover lands.
Don't let the fall be final and resolute

Allow me to mark the ends of your pages
So once more we can return to our favorite climaxes
To be reminded of how far we'd come

And reenter your world that I invaded and built a castle in
Though the criminal I am
Do with my demise and pieces what you will
But don't forget my dedication to dictating your testaments

Don't get me wrong - it's not that I'm  sacrificing myself for your story
It's just that
Your penmanship is better than mine
Have you ever fallen in love with someone at a library?
Norman Crane Oct 2020
Reading at the bar
Drinking at the library
         —Henry Chinaski
A haiku for Bukowski.
Henry Oct 2020
Baseboards lined with spiderwebs
That shimmer in the slanted sun
Next to worn, wooden chairs
Feeling sturdier than ever
Shelves and shelves of
Outdated textbooks and encyclopedias
Crinkly and brown and yellowed
How many trees went into these pages
This forest rearranged
And defaced by movable type
Oct 5, 2020
Henry Oct 2020
I sit in my school's dusty library
Like a picture taken on film
Full of grain and texture
Frozen beams of light
Through slanted venetian blinds
Capture and hold dust
Suspended like dew in a spider web
sitting in the library
10/3/20
Haley Harrison Aug 2020
A quiet, calm, serene place,

contrast with my heart's pace.

Gently slipping into silence,

just like plush, soft and dense.


The smell of books my spirit sedates,

new or old, they are the gates

of my comfort castle, made of words,

where pages fly instead of birds.


Safe and warm, paper and pen,

I can write, this is my zen.

For paper puts up with a lot,

every line, curve and dot;

with each word I lay on the page,

I'm one step outside the cage;

Outside myself, this prison of mine,

the chaos spills into written line.


Away from problems, light and free,

peace at last, in the library.
26.3.2019.
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