“Memories Are What Warm You Up From The Inside. But They’re Also What Tear You Apart.”

Kim Addonizio, from What Is This Thing Called Love: Poems; "''Round Midnight,"

If your theme doesn’t scare you a little, it’s not deep enough.

Look, surface-level themes are cute and all “love conquers all,” “good always wins,” “believe in yourself”...but they don’t hit the jugular. The best themes crack you open. They dig into the uncomfortable, unresolved questions you’ve been avoiding. 

Why do we stay loyal to people who hurt us?

Is forgiveness selfish or selfless?

What does it mean to feel safe in your own skin?

If you’re writing something that makes you squirm a little, like something you wouldn’t casually bring up at brunch—that’s probably the real story you need to tell. And that’s also the story your readers need to hear. Vulnerability isn't a weakness; it's the damn foundation.

Kim Addonizio, “The Singing”, Tell Me

You were spring except, no you weren’t, you were the leftover winter and the misty summer and the sweetest breeze and the saddest sigh, and the coldest night, and the bare truth incarnate. 

Sometimes, there are friends your parents will always disapprove of, (for good reasons) that life puts in your way, but you cherish all the same, even if they leave, even if they stay, even if they linger in the gaps like the brown of autumn and the spring in the day. 

And maybe I was inadequate summer, searing heat but no bite behind the pain, because really I’d always stayed far too quiet for anyone to care, and maybe she was the opposite, the vengeful winter, the fruitful summer, a forest fire in its entirety, burning down everything as it goes, but I’d always liked to think I was better because I did what they asked but maybe that wasn’t really true because id never know how to cling to things that really care; that really matter. 

Nothing of my world was left but you, and maybe if id lost you too, id go down the deep end so I clung to the only bit of you I had, the memories, the pain, the grief, the sorrow, anything, something, if not for me than for you, because you could hurt me all you like, but you still wouldn’t want me, so now I haunt even your ghost. 

There was a day; an age when you promised not to leave my side ever, and you held up to that oath like it meant more to you than your life, but I cant keep up with you no more now, you ran ahead and left me in the dark, you swore you wouldn’t ever make me your past, but a tragic story is all I am to you now, rotted flesh in an empty grave, flies and bees haunt me in your name, dusty pollen around my head like a halo, I suppose I was only ever a moment in time that you couldn’t really savour. 

i am back, children

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.