so i'm the dragon, big deal.

You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.

[weltenwellen]

Mary Oliver, from "Dogfish", Dream Work

[lifeinpoetry]

Come love, make me better than I was.

Come teach me a kinder way               to say my own name.

— Andrea Gibson, from “Good Light,” Lord of the Butterflies

[endlessly-unwinding]

I have been both the fist swinging at the cheek of someone I resented and the stinging cheek that cradled a jealous fist.

[red-wasabi89]

“I have walked into the field, mouth open, begging to be undone.”

— Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib (via vilicity)

[endlessly-unwinding]

a father stands over his crying son & hisses I’ll give you something to cry about as if he didn’t already bring a child into a world that requires neither of them.

HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS | Hanif Abdurraqib

[endlessly-unwinding]

pay me what you owe me for the way my heart breaking has made yours feel less like an anchor & in exchange, i will tell you that true wealth is the ability to embrace forgetting.

AND JUST LIKE THAT, I PART WAYS WITH THE ONLY THING I WON IN THE DIVORCE | Hanif Abdurraqib

[endlessly-unwinding]

Only thing that separates purgatory and hell is whether or not you can see the face of someone you’ve loved in the fire, baby, and I’m good with what I ain’t got.

THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE STANDS OVER HIS FATHER’S GRAVE AND FORGETS TO ASK FOR AN APOLOGY | Hanif Abdurraqib

[endlessly-unwinding]

but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless, and he was running out of lullabies

Little Beast | Crush

Richard Siken

[endlessly-unwinding]

I suppose that’s a common conceit, that you’ve already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

We Need to Talk About Kevin | Lionel Shriver

[endlessly-unwinding]

You were no stranger to wanting your heart to be anything but a muscle you called your own.

BEFORE THE CHERRY FESTIVAL

The Feather Room | Anis Mojgani

[endlessly-unwinding]

I loved you and hated you. You may find me struggling to balance both on the mantelpiece. I pray for earthquakes. I pray for the fireplace.

In The Pockets Of Small Gods | Anis Mojgani

[endlessly-unwinding]

I do not know sometimes how to be the kindness I know my cursive spirit to be written in.

In The Pockets of Small Gods | Anis Mojgani

[endlessly-unwinding]

I say every other day I convinced myself not to leave this earth

we all sometimes swim in the dark part of the sea

sometimes it is not the sea but the swim back that pulls us under

In the Pockets of Small Gods | Anis Mojgani

[endlessly-unwinding]

in the pockets of small gods | anis mojgani

[endlessly-unwinding]

Thank you for this gift of survival.

I already had it, but it was nice coming from you.

Caitlyn Siehl | FRUIT

[endlessly-unwinding]

I do not miss you, but sometimes that isn’t true.

Mostly I hear you, and that is different.

Caitlyn Siehl | THE PARK

[endlessly-unwinding]

Forgive me,

but I cannot walk into the place that is burning.

I am already on fire

and I cannot save you.

Caitlyn Siehl | SMALL THINGS