i saw you last in the fog of october

beck | 24 | she/they | published poet | follow me on instagram

[hellish-daddi]

[apoemaday]

It Was Like This: You Were Happy

by Jane Hirshfield

It was like this: you were happy, then you were sad, then happy again, then not.

It went on. You were innocent or you were guilty. Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent. Mostly, it seems you were silent — what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness — between you, there is nothing to forgive — but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you or your days: they will be wrong, they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man, all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad, you slept, you awakened. Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

[holdoncallfailed]

richard hell's apartment (via)

[cair--paravel]

Page decorations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1899 edition.

[weltenwellen]

Joy Sullivan, from "Late Bloomer", Instructions for Traveling West

[04k96]

[flowerytale]

Pierre Gobert (1662–1744), Portrait of a Bride with Flowers (details)

[folklorespring]

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge photographed by Acacia Johnson

[firstfullmoon]

Leila Chatti, “I Too Was Worthy,” in Wildness Before Something Sublime

[goblin-witch]

[sorrrowfull]

[wanderthewood]

 Slater’s bridge, Little Langdale, Lake District, England by Jason Connolly

[myelicia]

Julianna Bibor

[bybdolan]

2026, march.

[bybdolan]

[chantssecrets]

I am the man. I suffered,

I was there.

-Whitman

In Baldwin’s hand, cover page for the manuscript of Giovanni’s Room.

[jugn00-deactivated20220212]

look how tiny we are, almost invisible, standing on the world's finger. the planet's hair tendrils could woosh us away. yet, here we are. tiny people.