“Free verse bibliophile poem”

In the hush of libraries,  
books lean toward me—  
silent, and weighty with the hush  
of other minds.  
Spines gleam like elegant keys  
to untried doors,  
their titles  
a thousand whispered invitations.

I am a collector of dust jackets,  
ink stains on my fingers  
marking the passages that changed me.  
In novels, I wander—  
cityless, ageless—  
through Dickens’ misted London,  
the red-dust fields where Okonkwo sews  
the seeds of pride.  
I’ve slept in the attic of Green Gables,  
dreamed beneath Gatsby’s yellow moon,  
felt the hush of the Pequod,  
sea-salt in the air and pitch on my hands.

Somewhere, midnight bends  
around a well-loved line,  
and I keep turning pages—  
because hope might be tucked  
between two sentences,  
or sorrow folded, softly,  
in the crease of a last paragraph.

I have gathered words  
the way birds braid twigs,  
building a nest  
of stories inside my ribs.  
I imagine a world  
where children learn  
to build themselves,  
page by page.

I am built of borrowed voices  
and here, in the gentle dusk,  
the library closes.  
I tuck away my borrowed heart—  
a bibliophile,  
wholly,  
and forever,  
lost and found  
in pages.

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