there’s a strange kind of melancholy
in the finished lines of knowing
that a book has finally ended
and there will be no more world building

it’s 4:13am and I lie here
a runners high building up
to the crash
of all the ways I threw myself

into the storylines and the flash
of love and sorrow and pain in pages
into the narratives and bylines
and the me and you between the spaces

because that’s the thing
about these romance books
I say I read them
just for fun

but I know I read them because
in every line I see remnants
of my past loves
so here I go to pick another one