CARE LESS MORE

i would leave me too, if i could

[petaltexturedskies]

sylvia plath, from three women: a poem for three voices (march 1961)

[feral-ballad]

Forugh Farrokhzad, tr. by Sholeh Wolpé, from Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad; “On Loving”

[Text ID: "I'm so filled with you / I want to run through meadows, / bash my head against mountain rocks, / give myself to ocean waves. / I'm so filled with you / I want to crumble into myself like a speck of dust, / to gently lay my head at your feet, / cling fast to your weightless shadow."]

[tiredandlonelymuse]

My therapist once told me, “You are the guiltiest feeling person I’ve ever met” and just to prove her right, I took it to heart. An astrologer said, “You have so much water in your chart. What is it like to feel the emotions of every single person alive, everyday?” and I wept because I sensed he was displeased. A teacher told my parents “She’s very sensitive. Far more than the other kids in her class.” I took my SATs at 9 years old, but they encouraged my mother to hold me back because of how my eyes glistened when I heard the word no. She told them to go to hell. So I cried my way through my education until high school when they said “You take everything so personally, you’ll never survive in a company environment. You wouldn’t make a good employee.” So I employed myself (out of spite or…necessity) and then later, I hired 200 people. A boyfriend told me “Don’t be so dramatic, everything isn’t a movie.” Fine, so it’ll be an album then. The doctor said “This shouldn’t hurt a bit.” I tread daily on a minefield that leaves me classifying the variations in footsteps, the tonality in voice, a change in breath. “Is everything okay? You seem mad” is my pledge of allegiance to this tightly wound bundle of flesh. I am cut open, butterflied and flayed, with every single nerve exposed like live wires and, yes, they all hurt to touch. Each interaction is a litmus test of how well liked I am, and therefore how worthy to live. I wake up every morning and the moral barometer resets, T-minus 12 hours to prove to myself that I am not the bad person I believe I must be. Sleep, repeat. An amnesiac nightmare. Prometheus on a rock and the gull in my guts is myself. I once envied those with greater armor, but not anymore. “Why do you care so much?” Guard yourself from the little grievances, but the shield does not differentiate. The space where I am vulnerable to the pain that passes through is an entry point for the microscopic good that others may miss. I live in technicolor torment. If I could do it over again and choose the comfortable grey, I would seize a knife and cut the little keyholes back into my every limb. So the light can get in.

[letterful]

What am I to you now that you are no longer what you used to be to me? Who are we to each other now that there is no us, now that what we once were is divided into me and you who are not one but two separate and unrelated persons except for that ex- that goes in front of the words that used to mean me, used to mean you, words we rarely used (husband, wife) as when we once posed (so young and helpless) with our hands (yours, mine) clasped on the knife that was sinking into the tall white cake. All that sweetness, the layers of one thing and then another, and then one thing again.

— JOYCE SUTPHEN, “Ever After.”

[heavensghost]

Mary Oliver, We should be well prepared

[lifeinpoetry]

I Can Be Sad in Public

It’s a blessing to lay oneself bare and celebrate the mess.

— Diamond Sharp, from Super Sad Black Girl

[lifeinpoetry]

In Mourning

I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self. I’m in constant mourning of my previous self.

— Diamond Sharp, from Super Sad Black Girl

[metamorphesque]

— James Baldwin, "Untitled"

[weltenwellen]

Jennifer Saunders, from “Wait a Second, Let Me Write It Down”

[tiredandlonelymuse]

He learned to make a fire in the woods, he says. As a child with awkward hands and fingernails bit down to the blood draw, he was a small intruder rustling through the brush. He shows me how he does it, in a cold house on a hill. An “X”, a tower, a steeple, open it up and see all the people. I watch solemnly from the collapsing couch and bend my bare toes forwards and backwards till they might break. The little flame isn’t taking. I watch it hard and I will it to grow. I first tense the arches of my feet, my calves, my thighs, my shoulders, my arms, and my teeth. I stare at the clumsy pile till my eyes salt-burn and beg me to blink. Grow little flame grow. It catches, and with it, his face. The satisfied smile tears across his cheeks in tandem with the center log toting new flames along its spine. He doesn’t know that it was me. I don’t say anything. He’s too proud. One day he will make a fire out of me. One sheet of my dry skin, crushed for kindling. 5 brittle bones for tinder. Poking and prodding in a brick cave, he will blow and give it life. I will glow, with orange meringue peaks along my back. He will smile. He doesn’t know that it was me.

-Date with an Alchemist, 2022

[thehopefulquotes]

“She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines. She was beautiful, for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

[what-iz-life]

Being with someone who wants to learn about your past history, not to punish or hurt you, but to learn how you need to be loved

[nitratekisses]

Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016

[feral-ballad]

Linda Hogan, from Dark. Sweet.: New & Selected Poems; “Sweetness"

[tiredandlonelymuse]

I think arguably one of the only things worse than ignoring / denying a victim of abuse is accusing them of being the abuser. Especially given the fact that most abusers use tactics like “you made me do this” or the old “you are abusing me by calling out my abuse bc it makes me feel bad”. The victims who escape those situations often face a long road in their ‘next life’ of internally focused paranoia and constant moral inventory taking; afraid that setting a boundary, or being firm (or being in a bad mood even) is behavior that is too reminiscent of how their own abuser acted. Trauma altering the ability to differentiate. Having to muck through the dense fucking mud of “Am I a bad person, and that’s why this happened to me? Maybe it was all my fault…” A truly devastating phenomenon.

[apeirons]

Introduction, I Would Leave Me If I Could: A Collection of Poetry, Halsey

[thoughtkick]

“The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.”

— Ritu Ghatourey