Fires Don't Apologise

[adrasteiax]

“Cities, like forests, can be sanctuaries. Cities, like forests, can also be a good place to find monsters.”

— Nikita Gill, from Modern Apollo And Artemis in “Great Goddesses: Life Lessons From Myths And Monsters”

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“I wonder what it would feel like to be at peace with myself.”

— William Chapman

[lifeinpoetry]

But I know we’ve got animals in us like a house on fire. They smell the smoke and they’re digging at the doorframe.

— Alicia Mountain, from “The Difference between Oasis and Mirage,” High Ground Coward

[quotemadness]

“First best is falling in love. Second best is being in love. Least best is falling out of love. But any of it is better than never having been in love.”

— Maya Angelou

[roughlycapricious]

i live for the days where the wind flies through my hair and the sky is in pretty colors i live for the days  spent with you your fingers intertwined with mine your words filling the air around us the constant race of my heart i live for the days that my body feels light that my mind isn’t trapped in darkness that i feel free the days i admire the world taking in everything the days where i feel whole - m.w // days like today

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”

— Ernest Hemingway

[nidhibhasin]

Jealous

Yes I am jealous.

I am jealous of the wind

For see how gently it brushes past your skin

I am jealous of those sheets

You lay on

I want to feel just as fluid under your weight

That scent you so carelessly leave in that jacket

I swear I would kill for it

I am jealous of the way

that shirt clings to your body

While my arms remain empty

And I am jealous of this moon,

Even with all this distance,

there he is constantly watching you

while all I do is

Talk to the stars about you in whispers.

-Nidhi Bhasin

[adrasteiax]

“Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea;”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Exiled in “Poems: Edna St. Vincent Millay”

[inkskinned]

at six he pushed me down the stairs of the playground and while i sat there, hands wrapped around my injury, i was granted the crucifix by which we tame girls at a young age - a soundbite that ate me: 

“he’s only doing it to get a rise out of you.”

a rise, here meaning a reaction, here meaning, don’t make a scene, it lets him win, here meaning make no retaliation, let him keep playing, sit there and force every howl you feel building in yourself down into a whimper, wipe your nose and limp back home

at sixteen i was already familiar with this concept of sinking, of submission by point of silence, where i would weigh in one hand my safety and in the other hand, burning, the sheer rage i chewed on every time a boy whispered things that belonged only inside a bedroom

“he’s only doing this to get a rise out of you,” here meaning, a boy can’t be a bully, here meaning flirting looks like abuse, here meaning - let him run his wild hands all over you,  do not cower, it will only lead him on, do not fight back, that’s  slutty too

at twenty i was a raging feminist asshole, couldn’t just make friends, couldn’t just slink in and out of parties, would start fights with frat boys about shit they should know but turn their cheeks from, would be kicked out and snapchatted and called crazy because  i asked them to their faces if you knew what he did  why didn’t you say anything and while i watched these same people cross stages at graduation flip me off and then keep going

i was reminded to be the feminine emotional mess aka no emotions at any point, ever showing, for fear  they might be conceived of as inappropriate “he’s just doing this to get a rise out of you”  because he knows you won’t cry without being told you’re overemotional and you won’t yell because ladies aren’t loud and you  won’ speak out because then you lose in both ways, don’t you; he won when he hurt you and you, stupid girl, you lost when you actually felt it

at twenty five i am exhausted, can’t see the light, am sipping  on the drink i don’t want at a house party that’s too pretentious  listening to white boys debate things they’ll never be a part of  and the trial comes up because it’s gotta - and you know how it goes because you’ve been here before, the sliding in of a devil’s advocate, that sleek smile, that bitter on their lips, that victorious well i think he’s innocent, boy as heroic, like we asked for it, like we  deserve this, like he’s blessing us with a wisdom we had somehow missed, like we should be thanking him, like - oh, everybody, move over and let this man say things we’ve all heard before;

later, my panic attack is subsiding. i think it was his comment,  “if she was drunk, she should have seen it coming,” but i can’t  pinpoint it. things like this happen to me now. sometimes it is like dew, sometimes it is flood. i am shaking on the floor of a bathroom. my friend is petting my hair. we are gently talking around a subject.  one of his friends peeks into the room. passes me a warm cider. assures me, “he’s just doing it to get a rise out of you.”

i am twenty and he puts his hands on me. i am sixteen and he puts his hands on me. i am six and he puts his hands on me. my knee is torn open. 

getting a rise - here meaning: to cause pain. to incite to bleed.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

Robert Lowell, from The Complete Poems of Robert Lowell; “Vanity of Human Wishes,” (x)

[bellamysgriffin]

BOOKS READ IN 2018: the importance of being earnest by oscar wilde

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“Sometimes I wonder why words can’t actually make us bleed.”

— Swati Avasthi

[quaintobsessions]

Cast More Light

There is a saying, sweet prince, if I may be so bold.

It involves angels and demons tight in revels around you, heads of pins and teardrops on suede. Shoulders that bear worlds.

There is a saying, and it has nothing to do with fear and who walks which floor.

Treasure, this time I don’t know who has a right to speak here, or where my own voice has gone.

Terrible things were said. Things more steel than stone, more petrified than sticks.

Things that lost track of the deception in moving shadows. Things that hurt. You. And also

all of these souls pierced through, these bodies swayed by strings you always play like percussion. Thudding in anticipation. Easing a back-bend over a piano.

You have not stolen, but broken in. Not beaten, but crushed.

I wish there was heart in it. For you. I wish it for all of us.

In the end, you are not winged. You are still spoiled for choice. Ophelia does not dive here.

They say that wounds heal time.

They say everyone succumbs to love.

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means I survived.”

— Chris Cleave

[thepersonalquotes]

[purplebuddhaquotes]

“Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you’ve finished just to stay near it.”

— Markus Zusak

[blythebaird]

“MY MOTHER ASKED ME TO STOP WRITING ABOUT HER 1 When my best friend was a child, her mother used The Game of Life as a metaphor to explain sexuality. “You can have two pink guys or two blue guys, you know,” she explained. My best friend is so straight, she doesn’t even masturbate. Still, she always knew that even if she wasn’t, even if someday she ended up shotgun to another pink piece, she would remain loved and supported. She wouldn’t have to ask for forgiveness. Of all the things she was taught to apologize for, love has never been one of them. 2 My mother doesn’t bring up my sexuality anymore. I think she is tired of arguing. She is sick of reading about her faults in my poetry. She hates my selective memory; how I only remember the sharp things, the slammed doors, the heavy whiskey. “I used to sing to you before bed every night,” she reminds me icily. “but you must’ve forgotten that story.” Last week, she silently folded up her old flannels and placed them at the foot of my bed. I know this is probably just a coincidence, not a peace treaty or an attempt to understand me. But for my own well-being, I have to take this as a sign she is trying, even if it isn’t.”

— MY MOTHER ASKED ME TO STOP WRITING ABOUT HER, by Blythe Baird.