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[weltenwellen]

Mary Oliver, from “Hum Hum”, A Thousand Mornings

[anditslove]

Andrea Gibson, Birthday

[ursulaklegay]

actually i love growing older and learning how i work as a person like realizing what kinds of fabrics feel best on my skin or what brand of yogurt i like best or how I want to be touched. watching myself change, enjoying brussel sprouts when I used to hate them as a child, understanding why I got angry in that one conversation 10 years ago… there are so many mysteries inside me that i have yet to unravel and there will always be more and sometimes i think maybe its all worth it

[vangoghcore]

by samanthacavet

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Gentle Spirit

[weltenwellen]

Ruth Awad, from “Let me be a lamb in a world that wants my lion”

[strokeofserenity]

Sylvia Plath

[spacewonder19]

Soaring Ghost of Cassiopeia © carefreeastro

[ilostmygh0st]

[primulaceas]

Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects

[stoicmike]

You can turn your back on a terrible family -- or let yourself be sucked back into it. -- Michael Lipsey

[tranquildeath]

born to always mourn the present like it’s already become a memory

[melodicpianist]

[lionfloss]

Monet’s Garden by Samantha Cavet

[misplaced4everpartners]

Keep the rain, Searows

[ritikajyala]

It's been raining all day. I'm not old yet but I'm not young either- stranded in a limbo of young adult. All my friends are cities away, and I'm wondering who I am. My friends are photos and texts. My friends are video calls on Friday nights, most anyways. My friends are one call away but my bones remember the miles between us, hundreds- even thousands. I'm not old yet, but my shoulders bear the weight of countless goodbyes. I'm not young either. I can place a call but I stare at the rain. I can send a text but I write a stupid poem.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The Flesh I Burned

[firstfullmoon]

when susan sontag wrote “I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it”

[ritikajyala]

The weight of memory drags my shoulders down. I take a string and stack everyone I've ever known and loved like beads, pearl on pearl on pearl. And when they leave- because leaving is one certainty we're burdened with, and when they leave- I clutch the pearls and try to breathe. I remember it all, even things I've forgotten. Some nights, I dream of smiles and faces and laughs, my best friend at 7, the first boy I ever liked, my grandma on the patio- pearls on pearls on pearls, boxes full of necklaces stacked in every corner of my heart. The weight of the world on my shoulders- is that what is left of us in the end, memories stuffed in pearls, waiting to be worn?

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from the The Flesh I Burned

[luthienne]

Tony Hoagland, from Application for Release from the Dream; “The Complex Sentence”