The speaker describes a mind that has turned into paper, a place where books are carried from first page to last while the self lies in ruins. The title, "Preservationist," suggests someone trying to save things, and here that means saving words and stories, perhaps because the speaker's own sense of self has broken down.
The middle stanza shifts toward calm. When the speaker touches "the world put into writing" and is fully present in it, everything goes quiet. Reading seems to offer relief that real life does not: a stillness, a place to rest.
Then the tone cools. Other stories "give out / or run to extremes," as if the usual ways of explaining life either fade or become too wild to trust. The final line, "hope will be / our last struggle," is ambiguous. It might mean hope is the last thing we hold onto, or the last thing we have to fight for. Either way, the mood is fragile, quiet, and tired, but not quite hopeless.