#shinypizzakid

[chuckakot]

“Our hearts are secretly dying, fainting, bleeding,”

— Chuck Akot, from The Color of Charcoal and Other Essays, HEARTS

[chuckakot]

No one really tells me, but something about you tells me: how I crave everything, how I gravitate with you, how the wind gathers your lonesome perfume,   how you become a secret of the flowers, how you struck me with your Boleyn eyes. Where are you when I do not exist? And where have you been all this day long? What becomes of the apple when it falls on your lips? What did you do when the birds have found you?

Chuck Akot, 

No one really tells me

[chuckakot]

[chuckakot]

“I wonder if it will ever thrive to a point where what I write has nothing to do with you anymore. Come heather, come violets, pour in your scent to untie these strings.”

⁠— Chuck Akot, from The Pilgrim of Flowers and Other Poems, UNTIE THESE STRINGS

[chuckakot]

I am empty. My God, I am sinking away. What is this abyss?

Chuck Akot

[chuckakot]

It all comes back to you, the hysterical pear tree of your nectarine lips: this love is greater and genuine, callous and adamantine; I still remember it well– you are so full of my poems, and under your head a crown of flowers lazily laced with tulips and roses.

Chuck Akot, tulipes et rose

[chuckakot]

“A week of no writing, no words for myself, no sympathy, the loss of sensuality to things. How could I reconcile sympathy and words?”

— Chuck Akot, from The Color of Charcoal and Other Essays, SYMPATHY AND WORDS

[chuckakot]

I am not in love with her, but there is always a sense of tameness with her, as though this physical spell, is the movement of her sorrow, an arrow with wings, a dusty moment of coldness, inescapable desire, and melodious pangs.

Chuck Akot, from The Pilgrim of Flowers and Other Poems, MELODIOUS PANGS