Why I don't read anymore
A friend once coined the phrase “Bibliophile (non-practicing)” to describe us grown-up bookworms — but as everyone around me has gotten over the slump, I still struggle to make time for what was my most treasured hobby just 7-8 years ago. So I wrote about it, as I do.
Why I don't read anymore
My bookshelf stands at my bedside, a hundred titles a stretch away
It’s been there for years, but what were once rows familiar
Are now adorned with twenty spines unknown, and thirty more I call “to be read”
How did I go from stroking the pages
To reaching only for the phone charger among them?
Or else the perfume on the top shelf
People and reels now consume my days
Before I could pocket a screen, I hungered for words
On the way back from the bookstore
Half a sentence per streetlamp
That flashed through the car window
And dinner, and the bus, and the dance lessons I could not care less for
All dedicated to the words and the worlds within
I ache to go back
But I also don’t
Because the chef in me itches to see more recipes
The quizzer in me desires to hoard more facts
The linguistics nerd in me wants more etymology
The coffee addict aficionado seeks a better brewing technique
Born with the personal computer, I’m passionate about the power of these machines and of a world that exploits them fully
A romantic, I can never have enough of hope, prose or poetry
And having known friendship, who could go back to solitude?
So it goes
Always a book with me, scarcely opened
Its words and worlds, to me unknown
Mostly a ghost, haunting me
With the me who has now grown to be more
He still lives, the hungry kid
Comes to visit, every now and then
He never stays long
But the bookmark still moves
My bookshelf stands at my bedside, a hundred titles a stretch away
It’s been there for years, but what were once rows familiar
Are now adorned with twenty spines unknown, and thirty more I call “to be read”
How did I go from stroking the pages
To reaching only for the phone charger among them?
Or else the perfume on the top shelf
People and reels now consume my days
Before I could pocket a screen, I hungered for words
On the way back from the bookstore
Half a sentence per streetlamp
That flashed through the car window
And dinner, and the bus, and the dance lessons I could not care less for
All dedicated to the words and the worlds within
I ache to go back
But I also don’t
Because the chef in me itches to see more recipes
The quizzer in me desires to hoard more facts
The linguistics nerd in me wants more etymology
The coffee addict aficionado seeks a better brewing technique
Born with the personal computer, I’m passionate about the power of these machines and of a world that exploits them fully
A romantic, I can never have enough of hope, prose or poetry
And having known friendship, who could go back to solitude?
So it goes
Always a book with me, scarcely opened
Its words and worlds, to me unknown
Mostly a ghost, haunting me
With the me who has now grown to be more
He still lives, the hungry kid
Comes to visit, every now and then
He never stays long
But the bookmark still moves
The poem doesn’t talk about the future, or about hope. I couldn’t fit it in there. But I do still hope that I’ll be back someday. Someday I’ll curl up with a book and not realise the sun went up or down, and I’ll get up with a sore back, insane hunger and an unpennable satisfaction of having finished an emotional rollercoaster. I can’t wait.
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