A Book Poem Novels & Stories

It no longer felt like hiding; it felt like breathing. She met him at a small independent bookstore in Al Quoz—a converted warehouse with high ceilings, exposed brick, shelves that reached toward skylights. She was in the poetry section, running her fingers along spines of Warsan Shire and Safia Elhillo, when a voice—low, calm, slightly accented—came from the aisle behind her. “You read her like someone who’s lived every line.” She turned.

"It feels like a place where you can actually hear yourself think. I bet you’d like studying here." "I would," I said. "It beats the noisy student center back home." We walked through the rows of books. Jax stopped. He pulled a small book from the shelf and handed it to me. It was a book of poems. "Read the one on page 42," he said. I opened it. The poem was about a bird that finally learned to fly after being kept in a gold cage. I looked up at him, my heart skipping a beat. I didn't know what to say. I just held the book.

Neither of us mentioned it. “I didn’t realize you read poetry,” I said, sliding a thin book into place. “Occasionally,” he admitted. “Usually when I can’t sleep. There’s something… grounding about it.” “I get that,” I said, my fingers lingering on the spine of a weathered collection. “It’s like trying to make sense of feelings you can’t name.” He looked at me then, long enough that I felt my pulse shift. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Exactly like that.”

"You okay?" I nodded quickly. Too quickly. "Yeah. Just... tired." He didn’t push. … Next, he drove us to a bookstore. Not one of those shiny chains, but an old place that smelled like paper and memories. I loved it instantly. He let me wander, didn’t follow too close, just stayed near enough to make me feel safe. I picked up a copy of a poetry book and flipped through it. He appeared behind me and pointed to a page. "That one. That poem. Read it."

I only felt a deep sense of satisfaction. Dylan's tears fell. Suddenly, he looked up and lunged at me, grabbing my neck. "Fiona, it's you! You poisoned my parents! You killed them!" His grip was firm. Soon, everything went black before my eyes. Fear gripped my heart as my hands clenched tightly. Bernice rushed over, desperately trying to pull his hands away. "Dylan, stop! This has nothing to do with Fiona. In fact, she's been running around trying to help today. Don't be ungrateful!"

It was open late, and the soft lighting inside looked like a scene from another world. I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The scent of old pages and wood polish welcomed me like a friend. I didn’t even look at the titles at first I just wandered the aisles, brushing my fingers along the spines of hardcovers, letting the silence cradle me. I paused in the poetry section. There was something honest about poetry. No filler. No fluff. Just raw, unfiltered emotion. I picked up a slim volume by an author I didn’t recognize and flipped through the pages of the book. I wasn't going to read it. it had coffee brown pages and if I knew anything that book was going to get me wrecked and I wasn’t

It was hardbound but there was no title or anything— it was just a book covered with vintage material. Khloe handed out the book to me so I let her go and held it in my hand. I scanned it by flipping the pages and I noticed that the contents were all handwritten. There was also no title inside, table of contents, index nor publisher information. And I realized this was not really a book— it was purely a handwritten notebook. "Can you read the latest handwritten poem?" Khloe spoke and I gazed up at her with my eyebrow raised.

An hour later, after searching for anything to help us within books that ranged from brand new to hundreds of years old, I huffed with disappointment and decided to stretch my legs; my pale finger trailed over the spines of books, dust painting my fingertip. Once I reached the poetry section, I smiled brightly. All around me were books from Silvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickson, Robert Frost, and many others that were like my old friends. Taking a random book off the shelf, I flipped through its contents. "(...) Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." ~ Tecumseh "You enjoy poetry too?" A familiar voice spoke behind me, making my heart speed up as I jumped slightly. Turn

I close the door quietly. I spend an hour in the smaller library looking at the books. He has everything. Fiction. Nonfiction. Art books. History. A whole shelf of poetry that looks like it has never been touched. I pull out a volume of Mary Oliver and flip through it. Someone has dog-eared a page. I read the poem. "Wild Geese." I read it twice.

I make my way through the aisles, my fingers trailing along the spines of books, until I reach the poetry section. I don't know why I'm drawn here. I just am. My body moves like it knows something my brain doesn't. I walk through the poetry section, line by line, shelf by shelf, until I stop. My hand freezes mid-reach. 'Pablo Neruda.' A whole row of his work, lined up neatly, my fingers pause over one book in particular. 'Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.' I pull it off the shelf slowly, like it might bite me. The cover is worn, soft under my fingers, like someone's held this book a lot and loved it.