perhaps in the marrow of one's bones

Gwendolyn https://workedwords.wordpress.com

[mournfulroses]

Katherine May, from Wintering: How I learned to Flourish when Life became Frozen 

[howifeltabouthim]

. . . and always the thought splitting in: Is this really my life? Is this the best I can do?

Susan Minot, from Don't Be a Stranger

[on-poetry]

I remember life. There was so much. I held it all. I held it all.

Michelle Hulan, “The Universe, as in One Last Song for the Lonely Hearts”, Chestnut Review

[creaturey]

have i mentioned how nice the view is from our balcony

[heartcountry]

“I. Our kiss is a secret handshake, a password. We love like spies, like bruised prize fighters, Like children building tree houses. Our love is serious business. One look from you and my spine reincarnates as kite string. When I hesitate to hold your hand, it is because to know is to be responsible for knowing. II. There is no clean way to enter the heavy machinery of the heart. Just jagged cutthroat questions. Just the glitter and blood production. III. The truth is this: My love for you is the only empire I will ever build. When it falls, as all empires do, my career in empire building will be over. I will retreat to an island. I will dabble in the vacation-hut industry. I will skulk about the private libraries and public parks. I will fold the clean clothes. I will wash the dishes. I will never again dream of having the whole world.”

— Mindy Nettifee, “This is the Nonsense of Love” (via larmoyante)

[maybuds]

A Good Story

Some days—dishes piled in the sink, books littering the coffee table— are harder than others. Today, my head is packed with cockroaches,

dizziness and everywhere it hurts. Venom in the jaw, behind the eyes, between the blades. Still, the dog is snoring on my right, the cat, on my left.

Outside, all those redbuds are just getting good. I tell a friend, The body is so body. And she nods. I used to like the darkest stories, the bleak

snippets someone would toss out about just how bad it could get. My stepfather told me a story about when he lived on the streets as a kid,

how he’d, some nights, sleep under the grill at a fast food restaurant until both he and his buddy got fired. I used to like that story for some reason,

something in me that believed in overcoming. But right now all I want is a story about human kindness, the way once when I couldn’t stop

crying because I was fifteen and heartbroken, he came in and made me eat a small pizza he’d cut up into tiny bits until the tears stopped.

Maybe I was just hungry, I said. And he nodded, holding out the last piece.

Ada Limón

[metamorphesque]

― Mieko Kawakami, Heaven

[heartcountry]

“This is what I have. The dull hangover of waiting, the blush of my heart on the damp grass, the flower-faced moon.”

— Mary Oliver, excerpt of “Crazy Little Love Song”, in Blue Horses (via readherandweep)

[abovearth]

[soracities]

when maya angelou said “have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

[lightheartedsuggestion]

Progress isn’t always linear. You’ll have good days and bad days. Keep going. You won’t always feel like this.

[mentalhealth]

you have to let yourself be vulnerable. you have to accept the risk it comes with. it’s how you will grow.

[yvesolade]

“We’ve seen what they have to offer. It’s great. It’s beautiful. And it is not nearly enough.”

— Guante, from A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry (via buttonpoetry)

[bumbumtugboat]

cottage skies fix almost everything

[weltenwellen]

“—here is a cool quiet morning again, a feeling of relief, respite, hope.”

— Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary

[weltenwellen]

Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

[mikarchive-deactivated20250714]

may sarton, journal of a solitude