One for the books

The tea burns as it goes

Down my throat—

I can’t halt my thoughts

From where they long

To go;

Angry rains against

Window panes

Book in hand; words that serenade

My empty head and

Heady heart and soul

With magical worlds I wish to hold;

Seated in bed beneath blankets

With my copious bookshelf only as far as my arms’ length.

I devour each page, eyes ever-hungry

Until I conquer saga after saga, each imaginary universe crumbling

As I read it to completion 

Only for reality to trickle back in—I’m still here 

In my room

With no palaces to see, rogues to meet, or

World to save—

Those worlds I crave are worlds away;

The rain keeps pouring

The panes keep moaning 

My books are forever in the palm of my hand

And yet they couldn’t be less

Forthcoming

As I finish literary voyage

After voyage, —and yet, perverse as it may sound

Even if I never go

Further than the door of my room

I feel as though

I have traveled to the depths and ends 

Of realms that most people

Never knew; 

The tea that burns my throat

Is a spark

Of nostalgic musty paper smells

And words that are works of art;

This tea brings to mind

The drenched days and humid, Houston nights  

I would sit up, wide-eyed

As I read, laughed, cried

Over characters more human 

Than the flesh of those I’ve known;

Over lands more lively

Than ones I’ve ever been shown;

This tea brings to mind

More than lines on a page–but rather

A sense of belonging

And the echo 

Of a paper castle

With stories that cascade

Around me at every angle—I have lovers, I have friends, I have witches, fairies, and villains

Therein smoke, therein fire, therein tragedy, bravery, and triumph—

The taste and smell and feel of home

Is no farther than the mahogany shelf 

Beneath the window of my bedroom

Perpetually threatening to overflow;

No matter the leagues I may cross on the day that

I do eventually take my leave

Of my abode—all it will take

Is a single sip

Of hot tea

To unleash the swaths and bolts 

Of bibliophilic memories–

To remember the lands I’d met

Before I ever stepped

Out to adventure into reality.

~ Maaheen Shaikh ’25