Still He Looked; Still He Paused. It Is These Pauses That Are Our Undoing.

Never finish a war without starting another.

Richard Siken, Birds Hover the Trampled Field

'But you tell me profound loves do not satisfy you. You crave to give and to receive stronger sensations. I understand, but that is only a phase. You can play the game now and then, to heighten passion, but profound loves are the loves which suit your true self, and they alone will satisfy you. The more you act like yourself the nearer you come to a fulfillment of your real needs. You are still terribly afraid to be hurt; your imaginary sadism shows that. So afraid to be hurt that you want to take the lead and hurt first. I do not despair of reconciling you to your own image.'

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

Above my own life on a crippled wing I soar, oh, I soar

Julia Hartwig, On the Heights tr. Regina Grol

the precise sound of a flower bud

- Ross Gay, Weeping

I am the fire, says the fire. My body is a graveyard,

says the landscape. You’re welcome, says the landscape.

- Richard Siken, Landscape with Several Small Fires

Of the moon all that's left is a stain upon the window.

Garous Abdolmalekian, Necklace tr. Ahmed Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey

I often see how you sob over what you destroy, how you want to stop, and then a moment later you are at it again with a knife, like a surgeon.

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

“Tell me what you know about the body, and I will tell you how it must turn against itself.”

— Seam: ‘Interview with a Birangona’ by Tarfia Faizullah

In a moment I could destroy the entire legend, from beginning to end, destroy everything, except the fundamentals

Anaïs Nin, Henry and June

“You / bring out the sea in me, so wade. / Wade in this.”

— Jasmine Reid, from “Instructions for the Moon,” Deus Ex Nigrum