A Book of Poetry

I don't leave my home without
a book of Poetry in my bag.

It's like leaving my home alone.

I have tried to befriend newspapers,
but they wrap me around themselves
and suffocate me.
A book of Poetry
puts a warm hand on my chest
and makes me breathe.
I float like a corpse
on the dead seas of numbers,
but it's the ocean of words that drowns me,
gives me a life worth living
in another world.

They accompany me like a friend,
I accompany them like a mistress.
We talk secretly, in trains filled with
infinite indistinguishable faces.
I smell the midnight oil
and the poet's hand
when I touch its words;
and the words touch me,
like placid waters
of a river on one's feet.

I never pull out a book of poetry from my bag
because it never weighs much
and I cannot leave my home alone.