tamsyn muir / plainwater: essays and poetry, anne carson / camp damascus, @drchucktingle / @grasslandgirl / temporary job, minnie bruce pratt / the stream of life, clarice lispector / mirror traps, hera lindsay bird / our curious position, charles bukowski / @heavensghost / @toli-a
[Image Description: Ten images of text.
1: Cream text on a dark brown background. âYou were so afraid she might touch you. You were so afraid anyone might touch you. You had always been afraid of anyone touching you, and had not known your longing flinch was so obvious to those who tried it.â
2: ââI suppose you do love me, in your way,â I said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed. âAnd how else should I love you-in your way?â he asked. I am still thinking about that.â
3: A photo of a page of a book. âIâve been plodding about through this journey like a disembodied spirit: no family, friends or community left to remind me I actually exist. I was starting to think that I mightâve just disappeared completely, a phantom in some endless loop of unfinished business.
But Iâm not a ghost, and someone who knows that has finally caught sight of me. Whether or not I fully recognise him is inconsequential.â
4: âpeople notice and people care and theyâll help if you let them. (will you let them? will they try to help, next time? what id, one day, they donât try?)â
5: âLeaving again. If I didnât care, I wouldnât be / grieving. The particulars of place lodged in me, / like this room I lived in for eleven days, / how I learned the way the sun laid its palm / over the side window in the morning, heavy / light, how Iâll never be held in that hand again.â
6: âIâm restless and harsh and / despairing. Although I do have / love inside me. I just donât know / how to use love. Sometimes it / tears at my flesh, like barbs.â
7: âthere is something wrong with you / there is something wrong with you that is also wrong with meâ There is a lot of space between the two lines and theyâre both highlighted in blue.
8: Black text on a pale green background. âI think of myself forever sitting upon the edge of the bedâ
9: A photo of bright green bushes in the woods. A white subtitle at the bottom reads âYou still have time to changeâ
10: âWhatâs that quote? There are only two kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.â End ID.]