loving people like books,

holding them close to our chests,

collecting too much to carry,

they are kept up nice and high on the shelves collecting dust,

some are only a chapter, some are letters shoved in between pages as placeholder, some a novel, some a saga

some are the binding, the ink, the creases in pages marked off for later

you are the inescapable

no matter which one you chose to pick up, open and smell

they all carry your fragrance with notes of pain and the darkness between your lips

you could see the whole shop crumble if you followed the rules:

burn

after

reading