23 Emotions: Vellichor

Dust motes swirl around me
in a novel they would catch the golden sunlight, 
but this is not that.

Outside it's raining
drops spatter against the grimy window,
but the squashy chair is cozy.

Settled back against the cushions,
the light may not be golden,
but the feeling is.

Inhale...
a thousand stories are held in that scent,
(not just the printed words) but that of how they got here.

One blink of my imagination,
and I'm back on the other side of the glass.
(time has moved me forward) but the books are still there...

waiting,
waiting for a (glorious) dreary day,
of tea and reading.

vellichor

n. the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time—filled with thousands of old books you’ll never have time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and dated and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured.