why does it always descend to this??

extremely unserious

[expressions-of-nature]

by Anita Austvika

[notmarkcorrigan]

quantum

we count time in prime numbers,

indivisible

except we aren't

held in superposition:

every path taken and not taken,

every value suspended

in the space between states

waves stretched across

all possible worlds

uncertain, unresolved

until observation

until you

and the wave collapsed

to one bright point

[vangoghcore]

by starababaztramwaju

[literaryvein]

L. V., i hope you're happy but i'll look away if it's not with me [inspired by @luminote]

[notmarkcorrigan]

new beginnings

miss me

a rooftop silhouette

in the fog

find me

a boy around the corner

alone

hide me

a man in a suit

ready to go

get me

a dream

and a half

[literaryvein]

L. V., life after the aftermath

[rilke]

all I can do now is be in the right place, at the right time

my failsafes will see to that

[distilled-prose]

ah, but there's more you see one must also do the right things for the right reasons

[notmarkcorrigan]

3-3

how we sour with age: the pucker of lips and lemons, all imperfections and peccadillos

another year bending over backwards for a world that won’t, stretched tempers thinning like voices carried over the back of youth, each birthday settling heavier in the hollows beneath our eyes

still, we count candles like small mercies, hold sweetness carefully between our teeth, taste time in the rind of ourselves: sharp, bruised, ripening

[notmarkcorrigan]

a poem about grief

the studio hums with sweat and ohms

faint musk of socks and surrender

teacher says "hip and heart openers"

and I almost laugh

as if the body were a lock,

and this practice the key

one breath in supta tadasana

and I come undone

salt water spilling from hidden fault lines

I didn't think was there before

the body is a vessel

it always keeps score

grief blooms from the hips, surprisingly deep rooted

in reclining mountain pose, my chest rises

two peaks split by grief

lips, trembling

lava tears, a small eruption

a hymn of release

the anger comes

sharp, red, absurdly alive

but beneath it only pain exists

tender and exposed

so I stay

let it flood,

let it name me

until I am new again

light, warm

a little less haunted

[makingsenseofwhathappened]

Friday 5:00 PM: Feral launch sequence initiated

my last two functioning neurons EOD Friday

[hagiharatakuya]

萩原 卓哉／Hagihara Takuya

Archive

[notmarkcorrigan]

like ships in the night

flight of the past, a failing trajectory

won’t ever touch the ground, i won’t let it

it’s imaginary, a theoretical preposition

a question with no answer and no location

the starting point left on the horizon

behind us another destination

to the sea,

follow the constellations, geometric maps

of our relationship

passing by

with wakes diverging, the fade

i trace over in my sleep, familiar shapes

the distance i calculate between

royal metric and unreal numbers,

dead space and blank silence

[wordrummager]

categorizing today’s list includes scarves by color and heft, lips swollen with kissing- a timeline, important dates (adding the digits) striking moments from countries I’ve been to, wishlist of items needed to start over, books to read and movies to watch, things to clear away (my clutter) things to fill my empty spaces all the ways we love

[notmarkcorrigan]

I still believe

in circles and continuous edges

the conviction of lines,

no worrying directionality

we no longer face

ourselves, turn the other way.

now you’re just a name

I say inside my head

to remember how it sounds,

together, never

aloud.

[apoemaday]

To the Insurance Executive Who Denied My Heart Procedure

by Joseph Fasano

You may not think it is worth it but at night, in the dark before morning, my son lays his ear on my gnarled heart and tells me it is beautiful music. He doesn’t fathom what you did to me, that you’ve traded our days of playing for a few small pieces of silver. All he thinks is my father’s heart is music. I hear. I hear. I knew. Ruler, the children will outlive you. I wish you a long, long life of silences while dreamers hear the living world is singing. The one you have denied a life is you.

[8-bitfiction]

[literaryvein]

L. V., excerpts from a past life

[cherokeeghostwriter]

i could not tell -where sadness ends it seemed a farther shore- than any map -had ink to chart or sailor to implore

and so -i walked -without a place until it ceased to be- and found the ending was not there but buried here -in me