To Feel

[lifeinpoetry]

Everyone shivering in their Leather jackets Eating sandwiches named after Serial killers And in the middle of All of it Magnolia trees Enough to make you Stop and say

Fuck!

Super tenderly.

— Ana Božičević, “Spring 2,” published in NY Tyrant

[seaymph]

“My feelings are transparent, dangerously luminous, and they remain.”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from a diary entry written c. September 1911 (via loveage-moondream)

[podencos]

I don’t feel strong enough but I always am

[larmoyante]

“Heaven would never be heaven without you.”

— Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

[neoyorzapoteca]

“I tell my students, ‘When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.’”

— Toni Morrison (via liquidlightandrunningtrees)

[oaluz]

pdf from here

[amargedom]

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.”

—

[theradioghost]

when the times get rough and I lose sight of the goal i just. reread “the orange” by wendy cope again & remember. that’s where I’m going folks. sooner or later, whatever it takes.

[theradioghost]

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange— The size of it made us all laugh. I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave— They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy, As ordinary things often do Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park. This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy. I did all the jobs on my list And enjoyed them and had some time over. I love you. I’m glad I exist.

– “The Orange,” Wendy Cope

[horreurscopes]

i have never felt as mature as when i finally understood (through therapy) and internalized (through emotional work) that you cannot connect and communicate with some people no matter how kind, compassionate, understanding, articulate, eloquent, or smart you are, and that sometimes a person not listening to you does not reflect on your communication skills or ability to connect or straight up intelligence. in a way, it’s letting go of the belief that you have the power to make people understand you. communication is a two-way street, and needs two willing participants. some people are just walls, and it has been unbelievably helpful for my mental and emotional health to let it slide and know that it does not affect me or my self worth. 

[gowns]

[gowns]

and THEN you get bored of just sitting there making your apartment nicer and become interested in public vulnerability again

[a-quiet-green-agreement]

The sun shone, and although it was a weak February sun it was stronger than it had been a week earlier. It melted the ice upon the window panes and someone pointed out that the days were getting longer and that the winter was more than halfway over.

– Alistair MacLeod, from “Island,” Island: The Complete Stories (Vintage, 2002)

[savagedefectives]

an interview with didion

[yoursoethereal-deactivated20230]

— Billy-Ray Belcourt, from A History of My Brief Body

[lilmamabeyellin]

when you’re positive in a negative situation, you win.

[lifeinpoetry]

“My god, will I ever not be / surprised by what I can survive?”

— Ruth Awad, from “Let me be a lamb in a world that wants my lion” published in Southern Indiana Review

[firstfullmoon]

After my best friend died I became jealous of the fireflies and kept smashing them against my forehead. I wanted my loneliness to be visible to those I loved. For people to see the yellow balloons I hid in my lungs. What I’m saying is I couldn’t breathe for an entire year. When they tore down her elementary school, we all lined up, days later, for bricks. We held them against our bodies. I’d like to think this is how we embrace our ghosts. Years later, it took my grandfather three days to die. I grew so bored I left to get ice cream. In the car, with the July sun soaking my back, I let my tongue protest death. Hours after my grandfather died, I wanted to take a photo of his body. His skin the color of faded marigolds. As a child, when my goldfish died I mourned the entire ocean. My father told me children in Palestine die every day. Hours before dying from cancer, Jim said take care of yourself. I said you too. When I visit graveyards now, all I see is grass and grass and grass. I think about how it takes forever to get to nowhere. Maybe I’ve outlived my life. And would like to become a bird. Dear God. Dear Earth. Dear Clouds. Why should anything die? I want it all to live forever. What I mean is I want to stand in my garden and gaze at the sunflowers. Amen.

— Noor Hindi, “Against Death”

[alastingplace]