I am spartan. I am drawn to clean, uninterrupted lines and negative space. It’s easier to breathe with minimal edges to draw the eye. Knowing all of this, it still surprises me every time I move that all the pieces of my life can fit into so few cubes of cardboard and tape. Granted, the screaming muscles in my arms and legs would argue that “few” is a bit inaccurate. Anyone that has ever helped me move has inevitably complained that I own too many books.
I know I should get rid of some. I should whittle down to a collection of favorites, but I can never bring myself to do it. Some part of my mind must take inventory as they’re being packed away but without fail, each time I move, unboxing becomes more like opening a time capsule. I’m met with the heady vertigo of memory.
Each book wears microscopic bits of my past like dust. I can flip through pages and breathe in a November day when my hair was much longer than it’s been in years and the taste of chai lingered on my tongue as I read about string theory and he combed through a sci-fi art book, both of us unaware yet of the tiny life growing inside me.
Or the ghost of sand between my toes and the scent of sunscreen as my breathing kept pace with surf sounds and I read the same paragraph over and over because even hundreds of miles away, I couldn’t stop thinking about the first night we spent fumbling and laughing and growing up together in the dark.
Just the cover of one book brings me to that first lung full of sticky smoke released in retching coughs and drifting upwards until it and I got lost in the stars above and the trees seemed to echo back the raised playful voices of teenagers tasting a watered down sort of freedom.
Some books have lived in boxes for a few years because they remind me of the time I said I was too anxious and shy to be a bridesmaid and feel all of those eyes crawling over my skin and she said she understood but I could tell I let her down. And now she’s gone and I never had the chance to be brave and stand up with her when she needed me.
So I’ll keep lugging these books around from place to place and surround myself with them because each book changed me a little. Each book is a little building block or echo chamber into my psyche. Here and there each bent page and underlined sentence come together to tell my story. There are some things, no matter the weight, that I’d hate to forget.
dededos
gummygunk
stormborns
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
vaporwave
ellievsbear
dailybridgerton
titsay
origamiaround
kaledo-art
