A Book Lover’s Dream

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I could live in a book.

Not as a character, but

I could sit on it and fiddle its pages

Flap its cover

Walk on the many worded lines

Tap its bind to say “Hello”

Kiss the colors swirled on the cover

Wrap my arms around its fragility

Nap in-between the pages

Make love on its back cover

Play house on the empty pages

Hopscotch between verbs

Befriend the unusually long words

Hang from the page numbers

Swim the waves between paragraphs

Drink coffee with the periods

Play chess with the commas

Breathe in the years between reads

Cradle its sad themes

Guffaw at its hilarity

Clap at its humility

Cause a riot from its pain

Cancel the end and begin again.

-Zainab Karim