shine on seraphina

Believe in the things that others claim to be unimaginable.

[dreamandbeloved]

Waking with the sun

Birds chirping outside of our window

—two divine gifts

small in size but not in blessings.

The world is on fire

smoke billows from my home country across the Atlantic,

reaching to me like outstretched fingers

grasping for something that the world simply

cannot support.

Another four years of this slow burn

—but what they don’t realize is they all will try to burn it to the ground anyways

it doesn’t matter what their party or beliefs are

self interests, money, power

the world still turns but

at what cost?

I reach for the birds,

let their chirps drown out the noise

and the world slips away.

I don’t feel guilty.

[dreamandbeloved]

Pregnancy loss is such a strange thing. For the first time in my life, I was so excited to be pregnant. There was no shame, no fear, no scrambling to figure out what I should do next. No hurt from an unsupportive partner. Just happiness that me and my husband were about to enter the next chapter of our lives together. It was an unexpected gift that we embraced so fully, with hands intertwined, cupping this delicate beginning together. We held it in our pockets, pulled it out on both sunny and rainy days, giving it a peek when we needed an extra bit of happiness and excitement. I talked to the growing embryo in my womb, learned how to manage being out of breath constantly, laughed when I got so hungry in IKEA that I thought I was going to throw up. It was difficult, but so innocently pure, our little secret that we couldn’t wait to share with the world. But on the day of our checkup appointment, I woke up and felt different. I realized my dreams weren’t as vivid for the last few nights. I no longer woke up feeling ravenous. The snacks on my bedside table remained untouched through the night. I was not shocked when our doctor delivered the news. I didn’t cry, not immediately anyways. I had already knew.

It’s not our time now. I’m honoring my body and divine feminine with rest. And I remain hopeful for the near future. I’m eager to get there. I just continue to ride these waves of sadness and try to turn it into optimism. But it’s so hard when you can’t share with the world that you’re suffering and have lost everything—future Christmas traditions, a growing baby registry, nursery paint colors—in less than 24 hours. And now I’m expected to carry on, and I’m not sure how or what that looks like.

We will meet one day.

[dreamandbeloved]

I am learning that I can have this. I can have quiet mornings of burning bakhoor while you sleep in our bed. I can drink my coffee without burning my tongue. I am capable of sitting in stillness and letting my mind rest. I can have this today, and tomorrow, and the day after. There is no shoe that will drop. There are no past lives still inflaming my body. My limbs are free. My muscles are relaxed. We are getting married in four days, and I can savor it. Savor it without the questions of why from people who are too small minded to understand very different worlds can coexist. I will relish in the moment. I will read the civil code aloud and proudly sign my name next to ours in our Livret de Famille, and eagerly await bringing our children into this world so we can add their names under ours. I will continue building this life with you—one that is normal, and quiet, and gentle—in honor of the younger Kelly who never got any of that. I will honor her with roses and hold her so she can close her eyes and be at peace.

[ruhlare]

[dreamandbeloved]

I am falling in love with life again. I am dreaming of ways to flip it all upside down, paint it fuchsia and lilac, smear the vibrancy on our walls and back again. I’m remembering the sound of my own love song, the one that echoed off the street lamps at 3 a.m. with my ears ringing. It sounded sweet, and savory, and wild like the wind. I traded everything for nothing, and in return forgot who I was. I’ll give it all up to have the world again.

[jacayls-deactivated20230529]

here it is a collection of poems about hope and or holding on despite everything !

I Am Not Ready To Die Yet by Aracelis Girmay

A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde

Snowdrops by Louise Glück

Most Days I Want to Live by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Insha’Allah by Danusha Laméris

A Good Day by Kait Rokowski

Invitation by Mary Oliver

Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón

Tommorow is a Place by Sanna Wani

The World Has Need of You by Ellen Bass

Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower by Rainer Maria Rilke

To the Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

Night Walk by Franz Wright

Sorrow is Not My Name by Ross Gay

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

The Letter by Linda Greg

Testify by Eve L. Ewing

Every Day as a Wide Field, Every Page by Naomi Shihab Nye

[dreamandbeloved]

What was I but

a wandering soul,

dropping petals of love in the dirt

while finding my way

To you?

I look back

and see a trail

well traveled

that led me straight

to you.

[dreamandbeloved]

I wonder what it’s like to indulge in a love that isn’t volatile. To feel it wrap its arms around you not because you’re shivering in the dark - or because they feel empty without you in them - but because it brings the body joy just to know you occupy space. I have never known a love that didn’t hang from my neck like lead. My shoulders hunch from carrying the weight of my world, and that of everyone I have ever loved. I wish there was a space to rest my head; a leg to use as a pillow when the summer afternoons are long and stifling. I long for a bedroom with an open window and the beautiful sound of peaceful silence as two bodies intertwine, sweat beads transferring by touch, and the haze of shared daydreams filling the air. I used to dream of knowing such a love, but life is making me so tired that I no longer sleep. I no longer rest and see the brighter side waiting for me on the cusp of dawn; I stare into the darkness and feel nothing but alone.

[dreamandbeloved]

I wondered and dreamed of this for so long. And I found out. I get to marry him in less than two weeks, and I will love him forever and thereafter. And it is easy. And I can rest now.

[feral-ballad]

Susan Abulhawa, from Against the Loveless World: A Novel

[Text ID: “I knew that, despite everything, I was loved. I was loved hard. At once and forever against the loveless world.”]

[anthropoetics]

kinder than man, athea davis

[dreamandbeloved]

You don’t lose yourself so easily. It isn’t always so obvious, masked in bottles of wine or bouts of hysteria in the shower. Sometimes it’s quiet, like slowly bowing out of your writing workshop because getting up and out the door in the morning feels like trying to pull yourself up from a dried up well, reaching out to a light that won’t reach for you. Sometimes it’s like chopping onions in the kitchen with your friend, and realizing you have nothing interesting to say because you’re convinced your life isn’t interesting—it’s a burden. It’s letting your brain rot until 4 a.m. on TikTok because sitting in the silence makes you realize your derealization has become your reality and you’re not sure how to fix it.

I have been in a state of motion for too long. I dream of us moving to Morocco, of picking pomegranates off our trees together and raising children who can freely play in the street. I dream of spending my days cooking, and starting my own flower shop. I used to dream of big apartments, crown molding on the ceilings, maybe buying our own piece of Paris—but it’s all changed. I don’t want any of that anymore. I want quiet, and camaraderie, and space to heal myself.

The hardest truth I’ve ever had to swallow is that I love my parents to death, but they shouldn’t have been parents. I am reading about inherited trauma, trying to understand why I am the way I am, and my mother’s grief became my own at far too young of an age. I have had to take care of her my entire life. And now that I’m realizing it’s time to take care of myself, I don’t really know what to do. Or what it looks like.

Today I made a commitment to myself to figure it out. I want to try EMDR therapy. I want to free myself of this cycle of pain. I don’t know what it’ll look like, but at least I know I want to try.

[dreamandbeloved]

It feels like we're 21 again. I call your name, reaching for your hand across nothing but the pixels of our phone screens, separated by hospital walls. Memories of our ghosts flash before my eyes; blurry nights on roofs, powder filling our noses, laughter found at the bottom of green-label whiskey bottles. We're 21 and flying, skipping from rooftop to rooftop, knowing that our youth makes us invincible. I can still remember the way the moon swelled up inside of us night after night, our cigarette ash burning driveways and our laughter echoing off the street lamps. We lived by the night. If I close my eyes tight enough, we're back in our kitchen, clinking bottles of Shipyard together and propping our bare feet up on our kitchen table. Tomorrow didn't matter because we barely had today.

I open my eyes and I'm trying on my wedding dress, its white chiffon spilling on the floor beneath me. You're bound to a hospital bed, slipping into the empty space between today and tomorrow. Tomorrow matters more now because now, we have so much to lose. I don't want to lose you. My sister. Someone I trusted, and loved, and still very much do. Someone who was there before I figured it all out (mostly), and who wrapped her arms around me when it was all too much.

Time has changed so much. It has brought so much joy, but also has taken so much away. Time is a thief of joy if you think too hard about it. I think about who we were; I think about how youth continues to reach for our hands but is becoming more and more out of reach. We're different people now. But those ghosts of our youth will forever be entangled, dancing in the moonlight together. I'm just not ready to let that go.

Please don't leave us.

[dreamandbeloved]

He unwrapped me and I was empty inside

Another disappointment

Another broken carcass

Another love that I almost touched but got

Burned before I was even close enough.

[3098kg]

[words-and-coffee]

“I’ve come to believe that […] loneliness is by no means a wholly worthless experience, but rather one that cuts right to the heart of what we value and what we need.”

— Olivia Laing, The Lonely City (via echymosis)

[eliminated]

[recaption]