by Mohit Saini
We wander in the margins of a book,
where footnotes bloom like untamed vines,
each asterisk a door left slightly ajar—
a breath of elsewhere.
The spine cracks, and the chapters rebel,
plotting detours in the subtext.
We follow the scent of ink,
lured by digressions dressed as roads.
The author’s hand hesitates,
then spills a river of parentheses—
(we swim in the bracketed dark,
gathering echoes of unwritten words).
The index mutters: Turn back.
We disobey, pressing further
into the blank spaces between letters,
where the story forgets itself.
At last, we find the edge of the page—
white, infinite,
and humming with all the tales
that refused to stay in line.