To Live in Books
Editor Underground
by Kosan Shafaque
To live in books is to
choose an existence of infinite happiness and limitless emptiness,
recognize that naught is superior to your beloved, papery companions,
accept that real-life people in real-life flesh are now ruined for you,
acknowledge that no place can be grander than the description of it,
believe in the higher wisdom of the spells that spellings create,
and fall prey to worlds that subsist only in dimensions of the metaphysical type.
To live in books is to
fall in love again and again, and again
with all the faces of a book that multiply upon each read,
develop a divine connection to the creator and the creation of the book,
internalize the splendour of these words until they begin to reflect your own being
and realize the striking capacity you and your tiny little heart harbour for love.
To live in books is to
welcome equally, the comforts and discomforts of the author’s onslaught .
be awed by the creation of someone else’s twisted mind,
appreciate the speed of your mind’s eye as it travels far from your blankets,
and revel in the lazy feeling of the gears moving around in your active brain.
To live in books is to
succumb to all the idealistic values the cruel world evades you of,
know vast beauty, the literate kind; endangered in the physical world,
and remain young and innocent, protected from the perils of the real and the ugly.
To live in books is to
be deeply let down when reality comes a-knocking,
and despair when words fail you— then again, they promised you nothing.
To live in books is to
learn to love the trickery of your beloved words.
To live in books is to trust deception.