Book Lust

Books are like lovers.
You may secretly desire to have many in your life.
But you soon realize…
you can’t have them all.

Still, they catch your eye.
And they tempt you – in a store, library or just resting in a soft chair. Perhaps noticed at a friend’s party, ignored by everyone else and standing, waiting next to the wall. Waiting for you to introduce yourself.

Their smell is intoxicating.

The feel of their spine…
stimulates.

Large, small, thin, fat, plain or decorated.
All are seductive…
and often mysterious.

But once entranced by their charms,
you want
to know what might await you beneath the covers.

Above all else, it is their words, whispered into your imagination and those words cause your heart
to skip
a beat.

Spoken softly and to no one else in the room.

“Look at me lover.”
“Read me, touch me…open me and I will open you.”

Together you journey to places which can be called your own and no one else’s. You share secrets as the book touches you in places never before realized.

Lust becomes passion. Passion becomes deep love.

Let’s not fool ourselves, though. Each of us have taken a fling with one of those cheap and tawdry types. The ones our mothers told us to avoid. The ones which were bad for you, but exciting, nonetheless. You know the type, all flash and no substance.

But it was memorable, right?
Was it just a summer fling?
Were you attracted just because you were lonely?

Were there aspects of forbidden fruit? How did it taste? Sweet, luscious and rare?

And did you stay up all night, enjoying the pleasure only to see yourself in the early morning mirror?
And did you respect who you saw looking back?

Or did you simply smile and tell yourself,
“it was worth every minute”?

Each one is remembered for some reason or another. Some are remembered as being “good”.

And a few….
They were the BEST you ever had.

Anyway, even the worst one is better than television…
any night.