“Aside From Myself, There Was No Sign Of Me.” ― Nicole Krauss

hi what are your favorite love poems/letters?

I have a compilation of my absolute favourite love letters

as for poems:

“Having a Coke with You” “For Grace, After a Party” and “Morning Poem” by Frank O’Hara

“Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled With Shrieks” by Christopher Citro

“Elegy for My Sadness” and “Song of the Anti-Sisyphus” by Chen Chen

“Intifada Incantation: Poem 38 for b.b.L.” “Poem for My Love” and various poems for Haruko by June Jordan

“One Last Poem for Richard” by Sandra Cisneros

“Snow and Dirty Rain” by Richard Siken

“Wish” and “In Time” by W. S. Merwin

“A Pity, We Were Such a Good Invention” by Yehuda Amichai

“Like a Small Café, That’s Love” by Mahmoud Darwish

“Other Lives and Dimensions and Finally A Love Poem” by Bob Hicok

“For M” by Mikko Harvey

“To Kiss a Forehead” by Marina Tsvetaeva

“When I Tell My Husband I Miss The Sun, He Knows” by Paige Lewis

“The Quiet World” by Jeffrey McDaniel

“Morning Love Poem” by Tara Skurtu

“[Of all the things I have done, I am most proud of our relationship]” and “Aubade” by Yanyi

some French ones:  “J’ai tant rêvé de toi” “Les espaces du sommeil” by Robert Desnos, “Les yeux d’Elsa” “Les mains d’Elsa” by Louis Aragon, “La courbe de tes yeux” “Ma morte vivante” “J’ai fermé les yeux” by Paul Eluard

It’s so crazy how humans r social creatures but we’re stuck in this hell hole of late stage capitalism that convinces us we can not only heal in isolation but thrive in it too, find purpose and dedication and make a lifestyle out of it, and only at the end of that tiresome road can we reward ourselves by leaving desolation behind and replacing it with community when the whole time it’s always companionship and love and understanding that we need, it’s always someone we can share with to know we are not alone in this place and this pain...

The reason the work you’ve done on how you feel doesn’t seem like it’s working is because you need to do it until it works. It’s never been “this strategy will pull you up” it’s always been “here’s something you can do that will END with you getting out of that hole” the climbing still hurts and the being underground still hurts but that doesn’t mean it’s not working

Caroline Bird

“There’s how I don’t answer the phone, and how I sometimes like to lie down on the floor in the kitchen and pretend I’m not home when people knock. There’s daytime silent when I stare, and a nighttime silent when I do things. There’s shower silent and bath silent and […] car silent and then there’s the silence that comes back, a million times bigger than me, sneaks into my bones and wails and wails and wails until I can’t be quiet anymore. That’s how this machine works.”

— Ada Limón, excerpt of “The Quiet Machine”, in Bright Dead Things

Franz Kafka Illustration for Metamorphosis by Miguel Almagro

and haunting diary entries.

i truly believe that a lot of what gets labeled as "yearning" on here is actually deep & profound & excruciating loneliness & i really think we would have more productive discussions about it if we could just call a spade a spade

like loneliness is an incredibly serious mood state that has major implications for your physical & mental health & the pain it causes is far more intense than simple "yearning." a deep, agonizing longing for human connection is actually a really really big deal

Us Against You (Fredrik Backman)/ Detail of the Fire (Richard Siken)/ Anxious People (Fredrik Backman)

Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena