. . .

so dawn goes down to day// nothing gold can stay

[royaleeyes]

on charlottesville

someone told me it’s about love. I said

it’s not. someone told me

don’t mention it until they ask — 

they are asking. we are not answering

and the clouds out the window are moving

a little too fast and everything else is slowing,

back up forces back up cars

back up back up let’s all back up

we are the new crop of humans,

the shame on you generation, the ones with

sparks on our tongues and fire in our palms

and feet that keep marching

we are the eye of the hurricane,

the center of the sea of torches holding nothing

but the notion of something, something

somewhere that must be better than this

someone told me, this is love. someone told me,

they’ll never ask. someone told me, it won’t happen

here

someone told me, 1 dead, 19 injured.

someone told me, stay inside, 

someone told me, get out of town,

someone told me it’s just politics, it’s 

just politics, it’s just 

politics

I am telling you: it is not

[royaleeyes]

how to: say goodbye to a home

sit down with your father for pasta, the dinner he makes

every time that mom is out of town. fold your napkin,

once, twice, three times

in a little square, following his lead, as you have been. 

touch the tops of the cabinets, where you couldn’t reach 

ten years ago. dust them off.

look out the back window, see it with snow, with flowers, with

dead grass. see the white picket fence you spent two days painting.

It’s cold but not that cold. 

Sit on the chair your mother sat on, that day you climbed on her lap,

tears on your cheeks, when your teacher scolded you to grow up.

you did.

look at the front door, where the boy,

the one since the ninth grade, 

picked you up for your first first date. A good place for hellos,

a good place for goodbyes. Listen

for the sound of two sisters brushing teeth, of a garage door closing,

opening, closing, of the heat kicking on, of that one fishing show

on television with all the bleeps, of food sizzling in the kitchen, of

love, of love, of love.

remember nine years old. remember twelve, remember sixteen,

remember leaving at eighteen. remember

the first night for them, the table one place short. look for loose change,

dig through the everything drawer, call it a family flaw.

open and close the back door a few times, memorize the sound 

of the screen door sliding. step out and look inside.

picture it empty. picture the day you moved in, playing cards

on the carpet of the empty bedroom.

tomorrow you move out. kiss the walls.

[royaleeyes]

On Being a Bystander

I heard a story once -- a dolphin stuck on the sand, thrust

out of its home by wicked waves. Luckily, there were humans 

on the beach. Unluckily, there were humans on the beach

: Please Stand By :

A photo snapped on a phone for each gasping breath, children

pose with their favorite mammal, parents capture with joy, capture

the moment, capture the creature, capture the death

: Please Stand By :

Look how cute! Look what we happened upon today! Look

at the creature we had the power to save! Look at this photo of us

digging its grave!

Kitty Genovese of the modern age, let’s pray for a world we can’t

seem to change, hate crimes solved 

by petitions online, rape culture cured with a little jail time

: Please Stand By : Please Stand By :

start up a hashtag, a call for distress, help is coming, it’s fine, that’s enough

we are fine, we are fine --

but we are all on the beach, our country gasping for breath, this world

waiting desperately on those with the power to save, to change, to 

stop the pain

: Please Stand By :

[love-personal]

[triatic]

[bostonpoetryslam]

Interests from childhood tend to be very overpowering, and to have an aural or tactile or olfactory quality or whatever when you recall them even much later in life, and those are the kinds of memories and motifs I like to trade in as a poet. So maybe what I’m saying is: there’s no present self in my work. As soon as it’s written it’s an exhale, shedded skin.

Sonya Vatomsky, interviewed by Shinjini Bhattacharjee for Hermeneutic Chaos (via bostonpoetryslam)

[moamagic]

[itssierrabrooke-deactivated2015]

this is my favorite political cartoon to come out of the recent police brutality cases you have no idea.

[lost-but-not-in-love-deactivate]

[loveserum-deactivated20191021]

[fauxcocaine]

[difficult]

I wonder if you ever talked about me to someone.

(via difficult)

[silly-luv]

[lovelustquotes]

The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world.

Warsan Shire (via lovelustquotes)

[cryptidz]

[feelingsfrommoviesandseries]

[justt-livinn]

[nosebleedclub]

Discussion 4/15/16

1. First Drive 2. High School Swimming Pool 3. Secret Society 4. Losing someone forever 5. Something lurks

[royaleeyes]

1. It was night time and dark and rainy and my dad said it’s best to experience the worst before you try to be the best

2. The floor opens up and we all fall in like little sardines, no one looks pretty when glossed over with chlorine and too much alcohol

3. She wears a ring on her finger now and he didn’t even know, he loved her and he didn’t even know

4. Sometimes I think of the man at the art gallery and the boy on the bus and the way none of them know my name. It’s for the best

5. Down the alleys and down at the cross and down at the bottom of my stomach