AND MILES TO GO BEFORE I SLEEP

— moa, a reluctant optimist

[luthienne]

Adonis, from “Desire Moving Through Maps of Matter” (tr. Khaled Mattawa) / Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love / Kahlil Gibran, from “On Joy and Sorrow” / Adonis, from “Desire Moving Through Maps of Matter” (tr. Khaled Mattawa) / Naomi Shihab Nye, from “Kindness”

[artherbarium]

Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Les Fleurs d'Abricots, 1944

[wordscanbeenough]

“But what about when you lose someone who is still alive? When you lose track of the person you know within a person they’ve become –what kind of grief is that?”

— Catherine Lacey, Pew

[soracities]

what does love mean to you?

two warm hands, open.

[lispectorisms-deactivated202301]

Kazuo Ishiguro, from “Kazuo Ishiguro, The Art of Fiction No. 196,” interviewed by Susannah Hunnewell, Paris Review (no. 184, Spring 2008)

[eerin-deactivated-deactivated20]

“Bouquet of Flowers” drawn by Andy Warhol in 1956.

[soracities]

i love that we say “xyz character / writer / film etc, invented Love when” but in reality i think maybe everyone everywhere (re)invents love every day and every hour over and over and over again and sometimes it’s as simple as a glass of water, as simple as brushing lint off a shoulder, as simple as “this made me think of you”

[soracities]

when you remember this, and hold onto this, and after the love is gone you bring these things to someone else, you stitch an old action to a new one and you set off a thread that keeps on going. and someone will inherit that stitch from you (a lover, a friend, a stranger at a bus stop) and remember it and stitch it onwards in turn. and so it goes and so it goes. and that is love.

[soracities]

How will the world end?

it’s genuinely not something i think too much about. there are people to love and dishes to do in the meantime.

[dame-de-pique]

William B. Post - Untitled [Water Lilies], 19th-20th century

[women-loving-art]

Mary Oliver, I Have Just Said Molly Malone Cook and Mary Oliver, from Our World

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Your impact on other people is bigger than you think. Someone still giggles when they think of that funny thing you said. Someone still smiles when they think of the compliment you gave them. Someone silently admires you. The advice you give has made a difference for people. The support and love you've offered others has made someone's day. Your input and opinions have made someone think twice. You're not insignificant and forgotten. Your existence makes a positive difference, whether you see it or not.

[luthienne]

Nikki Giovanni, from “Poem (for EMA)”

[sgeoffa]

M. M. Mills

[lifeinpoetry]

“You kiss the back of my legs and I want to cry. Only / the sun has come this close, only the sun.”

— Shauna Barbosa, from “GPS,” Cape Verdean Blues

[weltenwellen]

[laurapetrie]

Nina Leen, 1947

[ourheartsareoldfriends]

i think the thing that makes me the most emotional in life is the realization that everything i have and everything i see has been touched by other people. someone designed the logo of my favorite tea bags and someone decided which paintings should go in the calendar hanging on my wall. someone built the roof above my head and someone paved the street outside my house. someone made this pair of glasses specific for me, someone picked the pear i ate with my lunch and someone designed my favorite sweater. every book i read, every song i listen to, every film i watch, tens, if not hundreds of people had to be there to make it happen. even if i am alone, i am always surrounded by other human beings - a fact that makes my heart squeeze in on itself everytime i remember it.