First Breath of Ink

The spine bends—soft but not yet broken—

that first crack open, a quiet sharpness.

Pages sigh out a smell, not quite paper,

but something deeper, a slow burn of fresh pulp.

Ink bleeds faint, a wet promise still drying,

a scent that sticks in the back of the throat.

It’s not the dust that hangs in forgotten tomes,

but the raw edge of possibility, sharp and clean.

I lean in, nose pressed to the page,

the air thick with a promise not yet fulfilled.

The book smells like silence before it speaks,

waiting, waiting, waiting.