Life of a Booklover

By Shruthi Jothsana ©

In the land of lethal Routines,

where Reality red pills grow

watered by liabilities and

Seeded by expectations,

I hide my time-traveling soul

amidst the pages of the books.

The ink-wielding words carry my heart

with no veracity but only tenacity:

to seek the forgotten stories,

be the hoarding guardian of saved words,

and a pirate after libraries,

an apprentice for the poems

that awaits its birth.

This haven of a garden shields

the truest and the purest part

of who I am because of the

words I have pinned and penned.

My ideal booklover's environment

How the poem came to be

In my 6th grade (a vague remembrance), I subscribed to the library membership in my native town. From pushing through to read at least one book a month - Tinkle comics mostly, to borrowing 3-4 books a month and later falling in love with Enid Blyton's Famous Five and The Secret Seven (an eternal thanks to my cousin for letting me read them during the summer holidays), I fell in love with reading. I fell in love with it more when I experienced heartbreak for the first time ever and ending up on the Wattpad platform. Reading the works of people like me, a fellow reader but a novice writer, was truly a thrill of a find. Their works lit up a spark in me write and read more. From writing sad poems and publishing on Wattpad, to becoming a blogger for a while on Wordpress, stopping it due to the lethal responsibilities that overwhelms us, and trying to level up from scratch again, here I am.

When these memories ring a bell now and then, I made it a vow to write an ode to this journey and this poem reflects my life as a booklover, capturing the moments I treasure most and find the greatest peace in. - SJ