cass elaine

from my mind | 🏳️‍🌈 wilmington, nc

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“God, God, what do I do / after all this survival?”

— Traci Brimhall, from “Vive, Vive,” published in The Missouri Review

[heavensghost]

The only truth left in the box, Katie Maria

[weltenwellen]

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

[vomitingwords]

"There are a lot of people who read me, but understand me differently." she stared at him, her eyes sad but she's smiling. She looked far ahead, then she continued, "And I couldn't make all of them see me, the way I always wanted to be. But...you see, I already made myself believe, that's totally fine. I guess, that's just real life." there's a long second of silence before she finally uttered, "I thought that maybe, even though I couldn't accept it, it's perfectly okay to know that including you, I'm just not everyone's favorite kind of book."

would you keep me if i was her? // ma.c.a

[philosophomoric]

“the ways you have learned to survive may not be the ways you wish to continue to live“

[vomitingwords]

"He would've been the best thing that has ever happened to me." she said. "But he made me realized that I haven't yet lived half of my life since the last time I saw him."

Not a single chance // ma.c.a

[blossomfully]

I could not bring myself to think that you were bad. Even though you had done bad things. How could I think that I had loved something bad? What did that say about me?

Sue Zhao, Nothing but Strawberries

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[pilgrimattinkercreek1974]

transit by rachel cusk

[c-asterismos]

It’s winter. You ask me about love

and I tell you about

violence.

I’m sorry.

I thought that’s what love was.

It’s all the same anyway.

Love is never what you want it to be. It can be better but it can be worse.

It doesn’t always have to hurt, but it always hurts me.

Love is something big and loud

and God left a long time ago and took the tenderness with him.

I was ashamed to be so alone.

Ashamed of my desire and inability to hold another’s gaze. Embarrassed to ask for more.

A light appeared in my kitchen in the middle of the night.

God told me I was forgiven and then he split me open.

Now I am hollow and made of dreams

and I often wonder if God is still watching

but then I remember there is no God, there is only myself.

All along I have been watching myself, watching myself.

So I gave names to all the rotten parts of me, and held them up high.

It is the devotion of pain, to something bigger than myself. I watch. Winter does not not fight back this time.

I used to be a hole in the ground, now I am just a hole in myself.

But now I promise that even when my mind goes dark i will still leave a light on when it’s time for spring.

[feral-ballad]

Nuala Archer, From The hour of Pan/amá; “Longing for community, Portrait Series: Plague of Inc.’est”

[memoryslandscape-deactivated202]

“I typically arrive three years too late. I wish I had been able to sit in that white, aromatic kitchen and look you in the face but I was not ready. I was still on my way.”

— Mikko Harvey, from “Wind-Related Ripple in the Wheatfield,” Sixth Finch (Spring 2021)

[nickandros]

judith butler, violence, mourning, politics

[weltenwellen]

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

[iambrillyant]

“it’s okay to be afraid of what this next chapter may bring. it’s okay to be unsure of which direction the waves are currently taking you. it’s okay to be sad about the versions of yourself that you are leaving behind. the shift from your comfort zone will always be uncomfortable.”

— iambrillyant