I devour books. The way old, decaying pages feel on the tips of my fingers as I flip them slightly; it excites me more than one would think. The way the pages smell satisfies me even more. You can smell the raw, heated passion that every page exudes. I take on chapter after chapter with an immense sense of wonder. How will this creation end? Will it slowly diffuse in the most lack luster of ways? Will it leave me hungry, hungry for more words, more characters, just, more? I eat words as if they are beneficial to my diet. As if they were carrots and apples. Although they are not technically, they do help my overall health, my mental health. My overall well-being, to put it simply. I let the words soak into my brain, leaving thousands of ways for me to process, predict and enjoy every phrase. I have an unquenchable thirst for twists and passion, portrayed through the ones I feel I know when I’m finished. The characters on the pages become my 'friends’. It is a connection so much deeper than flesh could every supply me. My paper friends, the characters, stimulate something in me I can't explain, or express. My 'friends' emanate a wholesome vibe, so caring and loving. Although they cannot speak, I understand what they ate saying. They console the part of me that I thought I had lost when I had lost everything else. After every chapter, page and even after every sentence I am nostalgic and long to go back. Back to when I didn’t know what fate the future held for the people I grew to adore and lust after. I need books in my life. Compressed pages unlock all the desires I long for in my life. I place myself in the book, as an observer of some sort and I live how my 'friends' live. When a more-or-less 'fictional friend' has confidence seeping out of their every pore, I then feel like I thus can take the world on. Almost like I am in control of something far beyond me. I could have the universe at any moment if I wanted to, and I deserve nothing less. When a confidant is overwhelmed with a failing dignity or an ailing passion-that-once-was, then I, too, start to slip away from myself. The only way to equalize the emotions I critically undergo is to devour more books. And more books and more books until I can't even look at myself in the mirror without seeing a glimmer of each and every 'friend' I have made, page after page, in my reflection. I devour books to enhance who I am, but more importantly, who I could be.