Reading

There is a silence books never teach,  

a fluency that lives in the pause  

between words you pronounce too fast,  

and the ones you never dare to.  

Reading is not the hunger of sight,  

not the march of sentences to finish lines.  

It’s the way a page inhales your questions,  

the way a story spills into your gaps.  

A great reader knows when to stop—  

before the period, before the breath shifts,  

and listens for what wasn’t written,  

what the author hoped you’d overhear.  

It’s not just the ink beneath your fingers,  

not the curve of comprehension you climb,  

but the furniture you move inside you  

to make room for someone else’s life.  

Great readers don’t conquer books,  

they let books conquer them instead.  

They let their hearts read faster than  

their eyes ever could, and fall quiet.