nomad

it was a dream this time

[railagainstflinch]

there is a story

is it a bad story when it begins as this

no, like nothing that I dream of

another word for another world or other version

version of another

of no

this bites and it is what it is

story ends there

[railagainstflinch]

first five lines in shelter

[omtai]

they need to invent a running away & never coming back that doesn’t affect your life

[senatortedcruz]

This is so beautiful

[railagainstflinch]

clenched around the handle of an invisible suitcase, they'll name a city after us, and all the scarves we left

[railagainstflinch]

risking the house on this game of chance, like a reckless headline: I'll lose everything just for a look.

If I ever drew you a treasure map,

close the closet to evade old bones

lead me only to the smallest moments —

a crucifix, the bathroom mirror

you watch me brush my teeth

like last soft proof of gravity.

orange leaves,

bright against a park of tired trees.

screen glow follows us under streetlights

as we step onto the sidewalk,

two witnesses to a city that keeps quiet

about the things that matter.

your thoughts,

your dreams, your mind — your twitching eyes held this life hostage, it would wither without, so I’ll meet you somewhere lighter,

somewhere between breaths.

I think of that night —

your eyelid under the city lights —

and I knew:

this is where I pour my life.

I no longer recognize a story I keep editing out of habit, for this forbidden essay

I was too afraid to read, but your name began bleeding into sentences.

in the early hour when

and I am unbearably lonely

and thoughts swim the dark like ink spills,

shadows clawing the walls inside my ribs

screaming at this night's wake

shaking this Rilkean heart

toward a clearing together:

right in the middle of a confusion

where rain falls

and everything sharply softens.

where smoke curbs the skyline.

fingers dim the lights.

this city is stuck in a rut,

until I walk with you again —

through the crowded streets,

my starlit, starlit sky.

[unardent]

[heavensghost]

Everything I feel returns to you somehow

[handycams]

[heateron]

[heateron]

[cloudtinn]

Anyway, don’t be a stranger.

Frances Ha (2012), dir. Noah Baumbach.

[railagainstflinch]

WHY DO WE KEEP SHRIEKING WHEN WE MEAN SOFT THINGS WE SHOULD BE WHISPERING ALL THE TIME ᯓ

[persephoneshellhounds]

Will I ever possess the softness I pretend to have?

— Fray Narte

Gif from: Stealing Beauty (1996) // Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci

[railagainstflinch]

Not recognizing what is real, does not count as evidence for what is not. And beyond language, beyond culture, possibly even beyond beings, there is a common denominator of insane and innate experiences within this shared space in the universe. Poetry, in its purest form, has no definite owner. The writer has no authority over the letters released into the...end of the song...for the writer is not capable of giving identity...life has been here before, the arbitrary constant....words always transcend the hand...like how the author implied... that the self is the universe.

[railagainstflinch]

connections linger in a last hug to someone migrating to another country for good, in the way a hand places weight on an engraved tile settling on a grave, in remembering, in how you press flowers between and in the moment you extend a hand—knowing that when it touches another, it has always been there, waiting to reach for you.

// mom bids her farewell to a college best friend and it's the most devastatingly beautiful thing I've seen this year //

[guulabii]

when richard siken wrote “i’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting” / when pylades said i’ll take care of you, orestes pushed him away saying ‘it’s rotten work’ but pylades stood his ground: “not to me, not if it’s you.” / when joo yeo jeong says “i’ll do it, i’ll be your headsman. i’ll join the sword dance. tell me, what do you want me to do first. how do you want me to do it? who do you want me to kill first?” / when amal and max wrote “i want to be a body for you. i want to chase you, find you, i want to be eluded and teased and adored; i want to be defeated and victorious— i want you to cut me, sharpen me.” / when amy dunne says, “i’ve killed for you, who else can say that?” / when franz kafka wrote “love is, that you are the knife which i plunge into myself” / when kate bush sang, “spilt me open with devotion, you put your hands in and rip my heart out / when benjamin alire sáenz wrote “break me, I am bread. I will be the water for your thirst” / when sylvie baumgartel wrote “my ribcage exists for you to open so you can hold and eat my heart” / when saeed jones wrote “look at the weapon I’ve made of myself. You want to cut yourself on me, don’t you?” / when margaret atwood wrote “if i love you is that a fact or a weapon?” / when anne carson translated these words: “h of h: i cannot rise. too heavy with filth and sin”. “th: give me your hand.” “h of h: I’ll stain you”. “th: i’ll take it.” / 

[railagainstflinch]

🗡️