Ink and Paper

I visited you this weekend. While I was home--home for two whirlwind days full of wedding planning and first visits to a beautiful, sacred place--I couldn't resist spending some time with you. I saw you every night, packed up demurely in the corner of my room, or stacked haphazardly in bags on the floor, and I had to let you know how loved you were.

So I unpacked those boxes, removed tape and peeled up labeled tabs, surrounding myself with stacks of wisdom and truth. Gently, I freed you from the precarious Jenga confinements of your cardboard prisons. I ruffled your pages and caressed highlighted words. Fanned out covers and re-read earmarked corners. Built walls around myself, walls of myth and lecture, poetry and essay. Basked in the constant waves of language as they swirled around me, feeding through eyes and ears and lips, filling my mind and spirit.

And then I packed you up again. I liberated a few sad souls, souls whose words I could not live without any longer, stuffing Billy Collins and The English Patient in my backpack. But as for the rest, you were delegated back into the shadowy corners. Left to dream of that glorious day, not too far off, when you will breathe on shelves doused in sunlight, the delicate touch of fingers on your spine and exhalations of wonder on your open pages.