Life Is Going To Be Tough But You Can Make It.

Joy Sullivan, from "Late Bloomer", Instructions for Traveling West

stop glamorizing “the Grind” and start glamorizing whatever this is

[I] tried to imagine what [my grandmother] was like as a girl. I had seen only a single photo from before she was married; already by then her eyes were those of a woman, an island in rolling ocean.

Dima Alzayat, from "Daughters of Manāt", Alligator & Other Stories

I am not a poet  I don’t know how to be one  How to wrap all my thoughts in a poem

I don’t know how to wrap my anger  In a bouquet of pretty flowers  Presentable to the world  In a way that doesn’t scare you I can only offer a scribble of curses  Paper torn in shreds 

I don't know how to wrap my sadness  In a lyrical song  Words so beautiful they make you weep I can only offer my tears Leaking out, droplets creating smudges on paper  Ink forming illegible words 

I don’t know how to wrap my love  In a melody that flows  Comprehensible  Clear  A song that loops itself in your head  I can only offer my heart  On display, beating a terrified thrum

I am not a poet  I don’t know how to be one  How to show myself to the world  In a way that does not frighten me to the core 

big fan of characters with abandonment + attachment issues so profound that they leave claw marks in everything they touch but would sooner gnaw off their own leg than admit they just want someone to stay for once. in a totally normal well adjusted and not at all projecting way of course.

good morning soft sad freaks on an unprofitable website

enemies to lovers but it's me and myself

"Failing Better: A Conversation with Ocean Vuong" interviewed by Viet Thanh Nguyen for LA Review of Books (2019) [ID'd]

“Be softer with you. You are a breathing thing. A memory to someone. A home to a life.”

— Nayyirah Waheed

happy new year’s eve <3