carry me home ‣ r. j. lupin

seven

reading

diving into a world

an unknown world

i'm ready to discover

a feeling of completeness

finishing a book

the common feeling of

loneliness

back into a world

where i feel lost

where i feel lone

where i feel like i am not home

- sja

Valerie's hair, although tied up in a bun, moved in different directions as the wind blew everywhere. She decided to go for the colour blonde, today, changing the colour as soon as she stepped out of the shower. She feels she'd been brunette long enough, so changing it may give her a slight feeling of change from herself.

Her eyes scan the typed words into the old parchment, looking at the inked font that began fading away due to old age. This poem book of hers had been given by her mother two years ago on her thirteenth birthday, the age where she began involved in reading such heart-wrenching poems that she couldn't even understand some of them for she hadn't even experienced some of the words written on the small piece of parchment.

They are bonded together into this small, brown cover. The spine, covered in printed fairy lights that bulge through the covers, around surrounded by the small roses printed along with it too. It's soft, and when you touch the petal it almost feels like a rose, maybe it was a real rose—it felt and looked realistic whenever she stared at it for too long like it's breaking away from the book and reaching toward her.

Her thumb, while on the page she was currently on, portrays as a temporary book cover as she shuts her book and stares at the cover: delicate hearts by sja.

She had already finished this book in less than a week as soon as she'd gotten in, and she remembered planning to write a letter for the author. Sadly, she'd only have written at least twenty words, stopped when she realized she didn't have the address, and abandoned it a month later after being busy with her exams.

The girl's reading glasses, though she laid down, lay gently on top of her bridge, her eyes hurting whenever she attempts to look down. If she ever read the book without her glasses, she'd only see a blurry page, with the ink smudged around like water had run through them and moved into different directions.

With glasses, however, she managed to read them clearer than the water.

Valerie opens the book again, placing it on her chest while she looked up: the sky was clear today, except for the occasional appearance of the clouds. Earlier, the sky was only the colour of light blue, almost the same shade of Valerie's eyes had she changed it into that colour, but she settled in with green eyes today. But now, when she looked up, the clouds appeared in different sizes, scattering around like thick cotton.

Her back ached from laying down on the hard bench for too long, feeling the wood press against her back. Her pillow was her left forearm, and Valerie squints her eyes from how bright the sky was, given that it was only eleven in the morning on a fine Saturday.

Valerie moves her head sideways to look at the tree beside her. It was the same tree she and Galton saw over a week ago when they went on their morning walk. It looked greener than usual, livelier now that the birds appeared more and chirped around. She liked the way the leaves looked curlier and greener, too—the way it's pointy at the end but curves majestically all the way to the stem.