“The deep of the night The soft breeze The light of the moon They sing to me, my love”— Todd Fraction, twitter.com
“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”— Yoko Ono, amazon.com
“Sometimes you think you’re giving a person the world but you’re not. Sometimes your world is not their world.”— Sue Zhao, blossomfully.tumblr.com
“On nights when you feel like your mouth Is filled with scar tissue when your fists are heavier than your clay heart, remember the broken that does not need replacement remember the lungs that pound air in a body too tired to kiss the sun tell yourself you are still working on it say healing, say tak…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“Hold that white flag close to your heart And pluck the orange from the sun – it is setting Let it set on your palms Let your shaking bones beat like djembe drums Let your surrender fall to the ground So it can hold this tiny blue earth together. There is an ocean inside of you and Its waves come in…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“I see smoke each time I look in the mirror Perhaps this is God’s way of keeping me safe He knows I’m tired of seeing dead birds in rusting cages. Last night, I called the wind and asked How she taught the dove to fly ‘the sky is a map if you know how to look’ She said. And I looked at my skin, marke…”— Tammy Danan, thoughtcatalog.com
“I was just trying to be honorable and not to steal things. I’ve always felt that if a thing had been said in the best way, how can you say it better? If I wanted to say something and somebody had said it ideally, then I’d take it but give the person credit for it. That’s all there is to it. If you a…”— Marianne Moore, theparisreview.org
“For there is nothing sweeter than her peace when at rest. For there is little more fierce than the need to be known.”— Ellen Bass, narrativemagazine.com
“What will be first to emerge? The brain, pushing its murderous bulb through the mud? The heart? No— the heart is last to rise. The first to emerge is the image.”— Jenny George, narrativemagazine.com
“THEY SAY it is the soul that rises, not the body. But the body does rise—”— Jenny George, narrativemagazine.com
“I can only say I have waited for you through western nights at bus stops in lanes by canals on airfields and the gallows of tears And then you came through the forlorn cities of Europe I recognized you I set out the table for you with wine with bread with mercy but imperturbably you turned your back…”— Ingrid Jonker, amazon.com
“I may be mad I may be blind I may be viciously unkind But I can still read what you're thinking.”— Annie Lennox, youtube.com
“My first love was some insignificant boy when it should have been myself.”— Michelle K., michellekpoems.tumblr.com
“Roses are red, violets are blue, I have five fingers, the middle one is for you.”— Gena Showalter, amazon.com
“Love, as I watch you sleep, knowing the iron in the blood that keeps you alive was born from a hard star-death somewhere in the past that is also the future, and what I mean to say is that I am so lucky to be living with you in this brief moment of light before everything goes dark.”— Dean Rader, narrativemagazine.com
“Love, which we are traveling through at such an astonishing speed, entire galaxies racing past, universes, it is as if we are watching time itself drift into the cosmos, like a spinning wall of images already gone.”— Dean Rader, narrativemagazine.com
“But even in the dark, time would go on, bold in its black cloak, no shade, no shadow, only the onward motion of movement, which is what time, if it exists at all, really is”— Dean Rader, narrativemagazine.com
“The hands went along with the body wherever it went. They wept when the body wept, trembled each time the body fell silent with pleasure. Salt and regret left their mark on them. Babies and wineglasses were entrusted to them, since the hands were precise, and enigmatic. Were they light beacons, real…”— Kathryn Hunt, narrativemagazine.com
“Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know What the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone.”— Eileen Myles, poetryfoundation.org