full of sound and fury

meg. 18. usa. "How can I celebrate love, now that I know what it does?" ~Gregory Orr

[neoyorzapoteca]

“Seeking joy has been an active practice, because joy doesn’t come easily for me. I’m prone to long periods of fog, as you’ve called it, and if I don’t seek (and make) light, I would stay in it even longer, would possibly never emerge. I swear by keeping routines, which includes taking care of my body—eating enough, sleeping and waking at regular times, getting fresh air, that sort of thing. I also put limits on things that smother my joy; for me, this is primarily the internet, which provides endless messaging that I am not doing enough, am not good enough, and just generally steals my attention and energy, which I would prefer to use on things which nourish me. I believe in the power of creating small joys, instead of waiting for a big one to arrive miraculously in your life. I made a list of these joys so I can refer to it when I’m deeper in the fog, like a menu to order from. 100 joys. They’re simple, but effective—things like bubble baths, calling a friend, dancing, buying flowers, eating dark chocolate, a cup of tea. Some months, I have to challenge myself to meet a quota, when I’m feeling very down. It helps. Little step after little step. Little light after little light.”

— Leila Chatti, from an interview with Sneha Subramanian Kanta in Parentheses Journal, Issue 10 (via skgroutpoetry)

[cariflvtcher]

“She likes when you call her baby and you like the way she likes it. How you want her isn’t so much electric as it is a slow burn at the tips of your fingers. You’ve lost sleep thinking about her mouth. She’s this buzz in your blood like the radio down low and humid nights in midsummer; she’s all young love and messy ponytails and sweat at the nape of the neck. You want to kiss her. You’ve convinced yourself that would be enough.”

— BABY by Ashe Vernon (via latenightcornerstore)

[beholdingslut]

I see / my escape. I walk into the water. / The sky is blue like the ocean, / which is blue like the sky.

Camille Rankine, “Symptoms of Aftermath” from Incorrect Merciful Impulses (via mythaelogy)

[gustaving]

I. over breakfast, my father asks what you see in me. I bite the inside of my cheek, shove a forkful of pancakes into my mouth, notice the salt shaker eyeing my wounds. II. you launch “I love yous” from a Brooklyn fire escape. they travel 3,000 postcard miles and collapse into my ear, exhausted. I pinch their noses, breathe new life into their lungs, fold them into airplanes, send them back to you and wait. III. there isn’t a building taller than two stories here in Orange County. not a single fire escape. no point in jumping. the worst that could happen is a broken leg or heart. this is why the sad kids get so goddamn creative around here. the mayor’s son rigged his noose to raise with the garage door when the Mercedes came home. a nine-year old leapt into the lion’s cage at Prentice Park Zoo after her dog was hit by a car. IV. on our wedding day, when I tell you “I do,” it’s because I do. it’s because you understand how ten-thousand dollar apologies still keep fathers worthless, it’s because my ribcage expands every time I think of you, it’s for all the things you see in me and pretend not to notice.

“your airplanes,” from Rachel McKibbens (via gustaving)

[prewars]

“I like to imagine that somewhere a girl takes revenge for me. She closes her eyes and dreams. She unfolds. She is insignificant and larger than life.”

— Odysseus Elytis, from Open Papers: Selected Essays; “The Girls,”

[brennatwohy]

Swallowtail, by Brenna Twohy

[prewars]

“I took the image of a burning woman into my heart. I didn’t hate the fire. I hated the people who did not believe her.”

— Lidia Yuknavitch, from “The Chronology of Water: A Memoir,” wr. c. 2011

[prewars]

“This is the end, isn’t it? And you are here with me again, listening with me: the sea no longer torments me; the self I wished to be is the self I am.”

— Louise Glück, from Meadowlands

[prewars]

“I want to tell you—I have loved the same man for seven years and almost every day I am restless, and almost every day I love him as I have never loved anything else, ask myself if this is what love is meant to be. How do any of us learn the difference between violence and visitation? Holy mouth, who wants only to swallow me, how is it I confused you for desire? Desire for love?”

— Sara Brickman, “Spirit Photograph: Shofar,” published in The Adroit Journal 

[prewars]

“Yes, I / love the girl. I love her like glowing in the dark. I love her / like animal.”

— Topaz Winters, from “Trigger,” Portrait of My Body as a Crime I’m Still Committing

[prewars]

“When you ask your lover what he is thinking, aren’t you really asking Do I occur to you? do I take place? Sometimes to walk toward anyone is the wilderness.”

— Christina Davis from Border Patrol

[antigonick]

Look— Your hand is a star. Your blood is famous in your heart.

Carol Ann Duffy, excerpt of Gesture (via henrydear)

[anintimacy]

Tell me the story / again, / of the sparrows who flew from falling Rome, / their blazed wings. / How ruin nested inside each thimbled throat / & made it sing

Ocean Vuong, from “Seventh Circle of Earth” (via anintimacy)

[iwildcreaturefromthewoods]

I want to tell him it was as easy to be with him as it was to eat food or drink water. I want to tell him it was not him but the road that we were travelling that was hard. I want to say his name over and over again.

Song for Anninho, Gayl Jones (via words-and-coffee)

[pigmenting]

I want to say how haunting you are. How gorgeous the sun is as it drips on us already in August. How little hours we have between us before you become that thing you insist on staring at, when we could kiss in grass instead.

Andrew Squitiro, from “Your Phone” published in Powder Keg  (via 7-weeks)

[heartcountry]

“[…] I found the rooms between the violence of comets. I threw myself into anything’s path. Even the sky bent around me. How lonely to be something that nothing wants to kill.”

— Jeremy Radin, from ‘So I Locked Myself Inside a Star for Twenty Years’ (via soracities)

[the-book-diaries]

“But the heart has its own memory and I have forgotten nothing.”

— Albert Camus, The Fall