Words of Devotion
By Winged Poetess

I’ve spent all my life buried in books. While others searched for human companionship, I searched for the meaning of printed words. Words of depth and emotion, words spoken and written by some of the greatest writers of our time. Poe, Cummings, Frost, Dickinson, they all spoke to me during sleepless nights. I spent countless hours franticly reading their work, relating to it.

Later on in my life, my passion turned into my education. Classes upon classes of Introduction to Modern Poetry, English Lit 101, Creative Writing. I even took a class analyzing Shakespeare and I was never an admirer of his work. Though I did enjoy “Macbeth”.

And so more sleepless nights where spent buried under pages. Only these pages where necessary for advancing my quest for knowledge. As well as getting high marks in my classes. I wanted to understand with greater depths the work that had been my passion for so many years.

A passion that turned into devotion. But like many devotions, it turned into obsession.

Like the solitary Emily Dickinson, I spent more time in front of books then people. A pencil often replaced a human hand that I should have been shaking at a first meeting.

Seasons passed away as I devoted my life to these great writers and to lesser known ones. Amber leafs would fall just like the old pages of the books I had collected would fall into box after box.

Those seasons turned into years. So many years have pasted. Now I am frail just like these thin pages. My hand can barely hold a book open long enough for me to dwell on the memory of ‘I remember when I first read this’. Now as my life begins to softly fade away with each day, I use what little strength I have to try and remember the words of forgotten poets and writers.

Just one last book. I just want to read one last poem before my life slips away. How ironic that I am now dying with no one to hold my hand as angels come sweep me up. If my life where a story, people would read on and say “How ironic that his devotion is what caused his loneliness.” Instead of giving my devotion so a fellow soul mate, I gave it to fictional characters. Now even they can’t be with me.

The End

Author's Notes: I wrote this in response to word #66 at the '15minuteficlets' community on LiveJournal.