Have You Tried Yoga? Have You Tried Aleve? Have You Tried Physical Therapy? Have You Tried A Chiropractor?

small talk enjoyers when the weather is in any way notable:

Mary MacLane, from 'I Await the Devil's Coming'

TEXT ID: To you: "And don't you know, my dearest, my friendship with you contains other things? It contains infatuation, and worship, and bewitchment, and idolatry, and a tiny altar in my soul-chamber whereon is burning sweet incense in a little dish of blue and gold.

Erika L. Sánchez, from Lessons on Expulsion: Poems; “Amá”

[Text ID: “In One Hundred Years of Solitude, / Márquez wrote that we are birthed / by our mothers only once, but life obligates / us to give birth / to ourselves over and over.”]

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you pay the finest attention to smallest details when you're touch deprived; someone's shoulder brushing against yours, a soft hand touch, an unexpected hug from someone, warm handshakes where you can feel the other person's entire hand in yours, the texture of their skin. that eye gaze where you feel as though the nerves in your face that go down your spine and chest are attracted towards someone's gaze. when someone's sitting two inches next to you and you know you cannot kiss them but you really wish you could.

“There’s a lot of pressure for people to make a very polished poem, to keep shining and shining it, and say here, it’s a perfect gem. There are many beautiful poems like that. A lot of Mary Ruefle’s poems are like that. But there’s also beauty to me in what I perceive as excess. One way I define poetry is as a blueprint to a feeling, so every line matters, even if it feels inconsequential or tangential. Even those tangents matter. So revision is really hard for me as a poet. Certain poems call to be revised because they want to look like that gem. Other poems are like, accept me as I am. Accept this mess.”

— Devin Kelly, from “On allowing yourself to be surprised”, from a conversation with Denise S. Robbins, published December 21, 2022 (via kitchen-light)

Fun and games until the balloon pops

Ocean Vuong, from “Beautiful Short Loser”

[text ID: Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I imagine Van Gogh singing / Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” into his cut ear & feeling peace.]