B.E.H.

“The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” Homer, The Iliad

[weltenwellen]

Hanif Abdurraqib, "Glamor on the West Streets / Silver Over Everything"

[weltenwellen]

Arielle Hebert, "The Inventors"

[crimsolyn]

I think the purest form of love is just wanting someone to notice life with you. "taste this. look at that. hear this song." again and again. until you can't imagine noticing life without them.

[b1rd1e]

not even kidding be SO earnest. Be so honest and forthcoming about your life, your feelings in the pursuit of connection with others, and know being as earnest as possible in your experience is what quells loneliness in those who feel the same way as you do. Is what helps us feel seen. And builds community and resolve within the fact it doesn't have to feel so lonely and insurmountable. we need community and connection. You really are not as alone as you think, we're all scared. we need to hold each others hands

[notasoupcompany]

[acerbaa]

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.  Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

love letter from the afterlife, andrea gibson

[thingsworthsaving]

The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light. Gentle work. Steadfast work. Life-saving work in those moments when life and shame and sorrow occlude our own light from our view, but there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another.

-James Baldwin

[baeleyhathaway]

“An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. It isn’t that to have an honorable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you. It means that most of the time I am eager, longing for the possibility of telling you. That these possibilities may seem frightening, but not destructive, to me. That I feel strong enough to hear your tentative and groping words. That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibility of life between us.”

— Adrienne Rich, from On Lies, Secrets & Silence  (via wethinkwedream)

[loneberry]

Alice Notley

[mournfulroses]

Alice Notley, from an interview featured in BOMB magazine, conducted in September 2015

[metamorphesque]

Anthem, Leonard Cohen

[bitesizedpoetry]

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

[ashstfu]

i feel totally normal about this and the scope of my desire is completely average

[matineaux-deactivated20260222]

kind of weird how parts of your soul are left in various locations without any warning… like yes i’m always at the top of that hill, sitting at the bus stop, in the cool light of the Japanese restaurant, standing at the pier etc etc

[dk-thrive]

Of course the universe is full of deep magic, but I think most miracles can be traced back to someone's profound and quiet kindness.

— Joy Sullivan, from "(Luck I)", Instructions for Traveling West: Poems (The Dial Press, April 9, 2024)

[weltenwellen]

Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

[circusheart]

cant stop thinking about this this was sooo crazyyyyy