Love, Andi

[beautiful-black]

💕

[herebly]

“Don’t be surprised if you can’t find yourself in someone else’s poetry, because you are only in mine.”

— a.m., Love, You Belong Only In My Words

[officialaudreykitching-deactiva]

‪People can only meet you as deeply as they have met themselves. Don’t waste your energy trying to explain things to those who can not hear you.‬

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

“people can meet you as deeply as they have met themselves” 👏 👏

[anancientheart]

i love people that live poetry. they don’t need to write it, they just are it. the way they interact with life. through their hearts so genuinely.

[rbcages]

“are you still happening there, in your body?”

— Joy Katz, from “December, Fever,” All You Do Is Perceive (via lifeinpoetry)

[herebly]

“I am realizing people hurt in different ways. No pain looks the same. They don’t laugh at the same jokes. They stop tending to the garden. Leave all the lights off. Pick at their fingernails. I try not to focus on what their hurt looks like so much anymore, but what still remains the same; their perfume, their favorite colors and hiding places, and what it means to feel better. Getting out of bed. A good, warm lunch at the diner. Curling their hair or doing the dishes. Regardless of what sadness looks like, wearing their body like old clothes, I watch the way they come back to themselves, every time. Granting what time they need for themselves. Undressing the loneliness. Filling the absence. How gorgeous it is to watch someone be well.”

— Schuyler Peck, They Way We Hurt (via schuylerpeck)

[fuckyeahpoetryslam]

“Cultivate silence. Silence is essential in order to hear your own voice. Especially nowadays when we often have the television on, the radio on, or music playing all day long, it is essential to find some silence to listen to your own voice. Your own voice is the only thing your poetry needs.”

— Ada Limón, “Mystery & Birds: 5 Ways to Practice Poetry,” for the Poetry Foundation (via bostonpoetryslam)

[inkskinned]

i want to be so kind it echoes backwards in time and undoes the things that hurt you. i want to be so kind it radiates from me. i want to be so kind that i make someone else find faith in humanity again. there’s not much i can do, i’m small and weak and i only know so many words. but i know i can be kind. and sometimes, i believe, that changes the world.

[lifeinpoetry]

I have done terrible things by being alive. I have built a wonder of terror with my life.

Phillip B. Williams, from “from Interruptive,” Poetry Magazine

[herebly]

i am so happy, i don’t know what i did to deserve this kind of happiness. grateful and frightened at the same time, owing to the fact that i am this untroubled.

[herebly]

I am bounded and surrounded by dark clouds; in the middle of the night where the only confidants accessible are the silent drops of rain and a tight-lipped breeze that holds me dearly, I realized that all of us came from the selfsame roots that made us. We may differ in our corporeal state, but one thing is certain, and that is we were once comparable. All of us were drenched by the same amount of heavenly body, but we have obtained them differently. We were protected by the gods of the ocean, but we became defiant. As we develop and mature, we discovered different things with our own ways and learned that we all wanted to be different. Our hearts suddenly became unruly; they promptly want to exist in different worlds. Some aspired to be the universe — the stars who watch our thoughts each night. Some wanted to be like the trees, to stand tall and to be the ones who will never be forgotten. Some desired to lodge in the ocean that no matter how lethal the waves are, they will still be willing to witness the calm between the storms. Some are emphatic about where they really want to be, but many are lost.

a.m., Of Shelters And Destinations 

[fuckyeahrudyfrancisco]

When you choose to be a poet, when you choose to spill like this, bleed like this, cry like this, your pain becomes an exhibit. A place for people to walk through and then leave when they are ready. No one ever asks a museum if it’s okay.

Rudy Francisco, “

Museum

[qpulm]

Katatsumori (Naomi Kawase, 1994)

[noorshirazie]

even the hand of a compass must knock back and forth before deciding upon a direction.

Noor Shirazie, you will find your way someday (

[serious]

note to self

[wordsnquotes]

I will stay gentle no matter what I endure, I am so much more.

Tyler Knott Gregson 

[motiya]

when you feel alone and work is overwhelming just remember that you’re a part of someone’s best memories. no dialogue just your presence, in exploring somewhere new, a reassuring smile and support you gave, or in lots of laughter and sun. it helps the days feel worth more, even if today felt like it didn’t count, it did. you exist in so many ways you can’t measure.