The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.

I would do anything to stay beside you forever.

Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead.

That I am your heart's secret fills me with song. I wish I could sing of you here in my cage. You are my heart's hidden poem. I reread you, memorize you every moment we're apart.

Books are boring," James said as he wrote. "They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.

I couldn't take my eyes off him. Like a desert wanderer afraid of mirages, I gazed at my oasis, but he was real.

...You deserve to be happy. What can I do?" Don't send me away, I thought. He looked at me again. "What do you want?" "I want to taste an apple," I said. And your lips, I thought.