“I Don’t Know How To Stay Tender With This Much Blood In My Mouth”

“question: how do you make a monster stop feeling so monstrous? you give her something she can hold in her palms without crushing. you give her something sweet and tell her to keep it. you wipe the blood from her hands. you say her name, over and over, like an absolution. you forgive her. you forgive her. you forgive.”

— whatever it takes

2023

invitation, mary oliver // the unabridged journals, sylvia plath // happy xmas, john lennon // north country, mary oliver // i am running into a new year, lucille clifton // salt, nayyirah waheed // diaries of franz kafka // bird by bird, anne lamott // sunrise, louise glück

“when you fall in love- you fall into an ocean. it is vast, it is deep, it is powerful. so, swim a little.”

— swim a little. |(morsus engel)|

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

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

Margaret Atwood, from “Owl Song”, Selected Poems: 1965-1975

Mary Oliver

Nikita Gill, from “Great Goddesses: Life Lessons from Myths & Monsters,”

“I coped by retreating and maybe I did become a mirror, a polished surface that shows nothing of what lies beneath.”

— Rebecca Solnit, from The Faraway Nearby  (via feestje)

“I fell asleep in the deep velvet of this wood; I dreamt divine things.”

— Delmira Agustini, from Morning Songs: Poems; “The Wings,” c. 1910