“I Am The Hurting Kind. I Keep Searching For Proof. […] Love Ends. But What If It Doesn’t?”

the maids, jean genet (trans. bernard frechtman) // elektra, sophokles (trans. anne carson).

“I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. She is still small and scared and ashamed, and perhaps I am writing my way back to her, trying to tell her everything she needs to hear.”

— Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body, by Roxane Gay

i think my body is falling in pieces i think my blood is passing me by

Micah Nemerever These Violent Delights / I.B. Vyache Excerpt 07.01.21 / Silas Denver Melvin excerpt from Grit: A Poetry Collection / Christa Wolf excerpt from Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays / Ethel Cain Family Tree (Intro) / unknown / Fiona Apple Left Alone / Richard Siken The Worm King's Lullaby / Gwen Benaway Holy Wild

i. Micah Nemerever, These Violent Nights

[ "I don't think you've ever felt anything that didn't hurt you. / We've found each other, out of everyone else in the world. Does that hurt, too?" ]

ii. I.B. Vyache, Excerpt 07.01.21

[ "It's time to forgive my hands for being hands. I'm going to hate myself a little less tomorrow. I'm going to hate myself a little less tomorrow." ]

iii. unknown

[ "have you shot a gun? is your blood authentic? is your blood authentic? is your blood authentic? can you prove it to me?" ]

iv. Christa Wolf, Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays

[ "You looked at me / (did you still see me?)" ]

v. Ethel Cain, Family Tree (Intro)

[ "The fate's already fucked me sideways / Swinging by my neck from the family tree / He'll laugh and say, 'You know I raised you better than this' / Then leave me hanging so they all can laugh at me" ]

vi. unknown

[ "I fight. I resist. It doesn't even matter what I resist; there is simply something in me that tends to resist things as they are. I have been fighting since I was very small." ]

vii. Fiona Apple, Left Alone

[ "[Chorus] / How can I ask anyone to love me / When all I do is beg to be left alone?" ]

viii. Richard Siken, The Worm King's Lullaby

[ "Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story." ]

ix. Gwen Benaway, Holy Wild

[ "I am tired of explaining the fire, / it burns because it must." ]

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl // Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gentle Spirit // Lyric Hunter, "A Garden" // Margaret Atwood, Power Politics: Poems // @artsy_tay_ on Instagram // William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew // Sappho, "If not, Winter" (trans. Anne Carson)

Anne Sexton, from A Self-Portrait in Letters

@sandarafreedompark / Sade Andria Zabala / Unknown / @danielederossi / Kiki Nicole / Giovanni Gasparro / Trista Mateer / Anne Sexton / The Coral

“Alleyways are a coffin–– this city is become my tomb. I am ghost: nameless, soon to be forgotten, another statistic for articles. Here lies NO-ONE, NO-BODY, child in an adult’s body. Heartless, warm, harsh/gentle, innocence stripped away too soon. Here lies a childhood. Alleyways are a coffin–– this city is become my tomb. Little child, lost: Another faceless child swallowed in the belly of a beast.”

— unmarked graves. (CNS)

“loneliness is the anchor / you’ve always carried with you”

— Lisel Mueller, from “Voyager,” Second Language (via lifeinpoetry)

the goldfinch, donna tartt // illustration by instachaaz (ig) // selected poems by frank o’hara // the witcher, netfilx // suffocation, crystal castles c. 2010 // the diaries of franz kafka // diary, virginia woolf