Groaning

Every time I tiptoe past you

I know that the burden

I’ve placed on your shoulders

Matches the burden

I’ve amassed in my phone

My kindle, my bookcase

Forever collecting

Piling

Instead of filing

Like washed and dried clothes

All types

Every genre

I’m no snob

I’m a hoarder

Their pages

Quietly teeming

Biblio-screaming

Full of wonders

Filled with dreamings

Intrepid, informing

But gathering dust

Their mistress

Steps hasten

Cannot stop to reassure them

Failing to resolve

Their need for

Having eyes

Engage core

Book hoard

Shelves of treasures

Every realm comes to clamour

Tolkien

Stephen King

Christie and Bronte

Some of Chaucer

Bits of Carroll

Snippet of Shakespeare

Tippet of Austen

Beatrix Potter leaning on George

Orwell and Martin

Even a Picoult

Crammed in with some Wilde

All the others

Squeezed and crowded

Choking out that

Their pages can’t breathe

Ashamed

I don’t look…