#xahar

[unlivedtenderness]

baez sisters

[unlivedtenderness]

“I left my sister out of this story because I don't remember her being there; I don't know why. When she told me recently what she wore to the funeral, an image punched through my consciousness, one of her sitting in a chair alone with the dress she described—that's it. That's my whole memory. Sometimes I think I repress the image of my sister in my memory to keep her safe from the word ‘family.’”

—Lidia Yuknavitch, Reading the Waves

[unlivedtenderness]

“Dans mon cauchemar, je craignais que tu meures sans la force que j'aurais pu t'apporter. À dix ou onze ans, je te pleurais déjà. Ta mort, j'ai passé ma vie à tenter de nous l'éviter. En pensée: Si tu meurs, je meurs. Depuis l'enfance, nos vies, je les rêve entremêlées. C'est comme ça. Il n'y a rien à expliquer. Ta mort, je la redoutais, mais je savais que tu me l'offrirais.”

—Camille Kouchner, Immortels

[unlivedtenderness]

Lily Greenberg, Sister God

[unlivedtenderness]

there is a silence so soft it’s only memory

[unlivedtenderness]

there is nothing like the memory of dancing with my sister to masafi by marilyne naaman in circles holding hands the whole world blurred around us

[unlivedtenderness]

Victoria Chang, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief

[unlivedtenderness]

i look up at the gaps of sunlight in the arboretum and miss you more than anything. the lonely, endangered cedar. so big, so beautiful, and so, so alone and far from the mountains of home. i think about what mahmoud darwish wrote about the trees. they are not just trees; they are the ribs of our childhood.