WHEN ALL MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS IN A BOOK ARE KILLED OFF

Empty Vessel

I’m empty.

I’ve given everything I have in me.

I don’t wait or truly ask for anything in return.

But now I have nothing left for me.

Not a drop has been added to my vessel.

And I’m alone and thirsty.

Desperate for some kind of sign that someone still cares.

I try not to ask for anything in return.

It’s not who I am.

But here I am.

Empty and alone.

If I ask now, I’m desperate.

If I’d asked then, I’ve lost my altruism.

They are content to watch me shrivel and dry up.

Their vessels are filled.

They may have some to spare, but none for me.

I’m not worthy.

I never was.

No amount of myself was ever worth one drop of return from them.

Yet I gave anyway.

I was worried they might one day thirst, they might need extra.

But they move on, filled to the brim.

Forgetting about the empty lonely vessel.

I collect dust.

Maybe even get knocked off the shelf and broken into a million pieces.

Not a piece returns a memory of me.

The one who gave her last drop,

To make him happy.

all we need is hope, not war 

children of the world pj

by valentini mavrodoglou

I dream of...

I dream of the empty tunnels within the earth,

where once worms lived but now only their corpses lay in the poisoned dirt. 

I dream that the sick earth gives away beneath our feet, that mankind slips down passing our equally sickened history as we go. 

I dream there are trees forever preserved in plastic, bones of fish that twist in deformation, the hornless rhinos mouths are still wide in pain and in their blank eye sockets remains fear, small bones lay next to big ones. 

 Finally, we reach our ancestors alongside the mammoths they slew,

 the only genuinely recognizable corpses. 

I dream that we never hit the end, our bodies fall upwards as we pass our mistakes, our triumphs are few and far between. 

Then I wake up. 

I stand on the dirt that I dreamt of, waiting for the human race’s sins to pull me down. 

I feel nothing but the worms digging beneath my feet, I do not feel the waxy plastic or the sharp bones of fish,

but it is then I realize I’m still dreaming. 

Purity

our love

when it was there

so pure it was

yet there was a gap

a gap which somehow

could never be filled

constantly it felt as if something was missing

but I know one thing for sure

it sure made me happy

and it sure was real.

— an anonymous woman on coming to terms with being a lesbian in the 1950’s-60’s, from an interview with Deborah Goleman Wolf

Lana 💙🌹

if you're a student at all, please take care of yourself. you don't need to compete with your classmates for who slept the least or who drank the most coffee. eat breakfast and go to sleep a little earlier. lay off studying for a night and do something nice for yourself. your body and brain will thank you.

— an anonymous woman on coming to terms with being a lesbian in the 1950’s-60’s, from an interview with Deborah Goleman Wolf