The Beast You Made Of Me

I Have Never Been Forgiven for not Understanding

You Shall Know our Velocity!, Dave Eggers// @heartmush // "Outbreaks", Kitchen McKeown// "Cures for Shame", Rookiemag// The Allure of Shame, John Dalton// "Outbound", Hieu Minh Nguyen// Visual Overdose//

“I rehearsed it all night—the absence of mercy, as a condition to you who said when I am in the same room as your body I am        in a different room.”

— Kimberly Grey, from The Opposite of Light: Poems; “We Are Mostly Merciful”

The love was there.

(NOT BASED OFF ANY CURRENT EXPERIENCES)

Jeanette Winterson / Ashe Vernon / Clementine von Radics, "In a Dream You Saw a Way to Survive" / P.D, "there is no absolution for the fallen, only dying" / Sky Ferreia, "Sad Dreams" / ? / Lidia Yuknavitch, "The Chronology of Water: a Memoir" / ?

silence lay steadily.

things haunt, joshua jennifer espinoza // giovanni's room, james baldwin // through me (the flood), hozier // flowers in the attic, v.c. andrews // i am in eskew, jon ware // anatomy, kitty horrorshow // the haunting of hill house, shirley jackson

Susan Sontag, from As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks 1964-1980

Anne Sexton, from A Self-Portrait in Letters

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." ]

you never get over your first love, not if its your best friend.

“You are your own unrepentant Delilah.”

— —  Jessica Helen Lopez, from “Obsidian Knife to Cut the Shit Out,” The Blood Poems