Bless you. Bless your beautiful hands and bravery to mark up books.
I buy secondhand books for the delight in discovering the traces of you. I wonder about your life, about what you were going through. When I read classics and see many highlights and underlines and some questions written in, I wonder what class you were taking and how your paper turned out. When something is highlighted that means nothing to me, I appreciate the words that were not meant for me but for you. I wonder what you were going through that made the sentence relate so strongly that you wanted to dig it further into your mind by underlining it. For all that is in me, I wish you well with that thing, and that it turned out as best it could. And when it didn’t, I’m glad you had books. I wish you all the comfort, but when you can’t have that, I’m glad you received at least some understanding.
My personal library contains traces of so many lives. I marvel like a ghost.
I could kiss your hands if it wasn’t so strange. Everytime I buy used books online, I pray to find another life nestled under the cover. I pray to find you.
by thesmokingbun