“It’s messy, but so are the best burritos and the best sex while eating burritos and running with scissors is the only way to make danger understand”— Bob Hicok, narrativemagazine.com
“When I hear news of a hitchhiker struck by lightning yet living, or a child lifting a two-ton sedan to free his father pinned underneath, or a camper fighting off a grizzly with her bare hands until someone, a hunter perhaps, can shoot it dead, my thoughts turn to black people— the hysterical streng…”— Nicole Sealey, narrativemagazine.com
“I want to bleach my hair an unholy platinum, shed my sheep’s clothing, go out into the white light of January, hollering and howling.”— Kara Nesvig, thoughtcatalog.com
“remember. you were a writer before you ever put word to paper. just because you were not writing externally. does not mean you were not writing internally.”— Nayyirah Waheed, amazon.com
“i am relieved. when i see the feminine presence in a man's eyes. it means he is a peace i do not have to bring to him.”— Nayyirah Waheed, amazon.com
“i feel best when i’m not looked at, i wish no one could see me, i wish i didn’t have a body.”— Alyssa Froehling, alienmouth.com
“I am please don’t go. / I am toss the windows open, but I am windows closed. / Nothing comes in, no one gets out.”— Lisa Marie Basile, occulum.net
“I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone, I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”— Walt Whitman, amazon.com
“She...makes me wish I could right wrongs, instead of poems.”— Andrea Gibson, ohandreagibson.tumblr.com
“i’m trying to love the shattered window of myself: the hands: the rocks: the broken religion left behind: my inheritance is a body of vandalized cathedrals: light me on fire: strip my god from my breath: watch as i dance amidst the flames.”— George Abraham, tinhouse.com
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”— Emily Dickinson, amazon.com
“...I would like you to stay and talk with me oh yes I say but if you are busy he said I don't want you to feel that you have to just because I'm here”— W.S. Merwin, amazon.com
“...you were my favorite poem and I'd read you every night knowing I might never understand every word but that's okay – ‘cause the lines of you were the closest thing to holy I'd ever heard.”— Andrea Gibson, youtube.com
“You draw constellations in my freckles. I mean you ask me not to fall in love with you and then you go write poems with your tongue and draw constellations in my freckles.”— Clementine Von Radics, clementinepoetry.us
“I kiss him and say: There is something in me cannot be healed. There is something in me needs breaking open.”— Clementine Von Radics, clementinepoetry.us
“I want to talk about what happened without mentioning how much it hurt. There has to be a way. To care for the wounds without reopening them. To name the pain without inviting it back into me.”— Lora Mathis, loramathis.com
“I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you. Tell me about a day in your life you wouldn’t think you’d live through. Tell me what the word home means to you And tell me in a way that I’ll know your mother’s name…”— Andrea Gibson, youtube.com
“oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much”— Frank O'Hara, amazon.com
“I pretended indifference even in the presence of love, in the presence of hunger. And the more deeply I felt the less able I was to respond.”— Louise Glück, amazon.com