Drawing Parallels

A book feels like a man. Force yourself enough and you may catch a glimpse of the parallels. One or two, here and there. Your lines may not be parallel enough if you haven't read too many books or haven't met too many men. No offense. Read on if you feel this will make some sense. Or if you want me to give you another reason to quit reading me.

I judge a book by the cover, by the title. A man by his face. I do, I am a hypocrite. I choose a book by its smell. The one that emanates from between unread pages, if you take your nostrils close enough. The smell aspect is the most uselessly non-functional utility of a book. I choose a man on similar useless non-functional parameters. I say I look for connection. But whenever I chance upon a connection guy, I pass him on as a friend. A connection guy is never perfect. The connection I am talking about is the core functional utility of the man, everything else is a useless non-functional utility, if you know what I mean. I choose a man based on what he is, rather than who is. The ones I have had ruthless infatuations on, I have been attracted to for the most evil of reasons.

I love all the books that I have read. I haven't read many, but it's hard to hate one that I have read. It could be because of the sheer amount of time and labor that has gone into finishing it from cover to cover. Each one has too much of my love in it to be hated. I haven't met many men either. But it's hard to hate all those that I have passed by. Even underneath my shallow sheath of hatred, there is a secret love. I never truly get over a man. Just like I can go back to a book I have read and flip through it, read through my favorite lines, pause at the pages folded in their corners. Kiss the creased covers, fill its fragrance into my soul, once again. It's never too late for me to go back to an old flame. Because I can never hate him, no matter how badly he has abandoned me. Because I always see the fault in me, rather than him. And he has had too much my love to be hated.

Books are heartbreaking. Some of them scream the truth so loud in my ears, the truth that I am not, that it breaks my heart to know it. Books tell me of love that I have not, books give me thrill that in my life I have none, books make me understand how despicable life is which I am too inert to feel, books show me that we're all beautiful indeed which I no more believe in. When I am touched by a book, I close my eyes and lay it on my chest. When I inhale and exhale, it seems I am breathing from the book. The book has suddenly reached a place inside me where no one had been before. I didn't know such a place even existed. At that precise moment books are heartbreaking. Men too are heartbreaking.