He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer's- she forgot her name and the words for fruit and food, she forgot her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son's name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity. She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn't know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is- she loved him before she remembered him.

-Ritika Jyala, excerpt from The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire

Sue Zhao

Franz Wright, from God's Silence; "East Boston, 1996"

[Text ID: Walking home, for a moment / you almost believe you could start again. / And an intense love rushes to your heart, / and hope. It's unendurable, unendurable.]

from ‘Bright Dead Things’ by Ada Limón

Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened every day and arms that were never for anyone else. But just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breath in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes.

You know that Ada Limón poem where she’s like “i can’t help it i love the way men love”? my dad recently confessed to me that he became a shoemaker because they buried my grandma shoeless

oh…………………………………

a year. 

january calls me a coward, L.H.  /   february, N.T.  /  to march, emily dickinson  /  an ode to april, @written-honey  /  daydreaming of may, @still-untitled  /  the truth the dead know, anne saxton  /  everything changed when i forgave myself, charlotte eriksson  /  will you be quiet, please? raymond carver  /  turquoise silence, sanober khan  /  untitled, @nightb-us  /  tristesse, gottfried benn (trans. david paisey)  /  the month of december, @voddxa

there is not a single day i don’t think about this quote in relation to tragedies

say the dream goes like this:

it’s august, and we are eighteen and unafraid of anything. in the dream we’re eating figs off the tree in your yard, sticky hands and soft, aching mouths and the kind of light without an end to it, and say in this one when you fall asleep with my head on your chest i say what i didn’t then. from your balcony we watch the lights go down over the city.

i drove to your house that day, you know. thought about what it felt like when you got into the passenger’s seat, your hair undone and your eyes like shining stars. i would’ve driven anywhere, if you’d asked me to. you and the world were endless. love was so easy, then—nothing to it. turn the key, hit the gas. it felt like this—

like lying next to you with the lights off, like our hands aren’t touching but we’re breathing in time. say this time i put my fingers through your hair. there’s nothing ahead of us, nothing behind. say the dream goes like this:

we jump, hand in hand, and we don’t hit the water. 

— u.a.

Scheherazade

by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake                                       and dress them in warm clothes again.          How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running until they forget that they are horses.                    It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,          it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,                  how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple                                                              to slice into pieces. Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means          we’re inconsolable.                                Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us. These, our bodies, possessed by light.                                                                 Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

life really is just like. you meet people you love them and then you lose them and you never see them again. and it's inevitable and it happens to everyone and there's nothing you can do about it

on: déracinement

1. Estou além, António Variações (translated by me) / 2. Unknown title, Adrian J Warren / 3. Mother Tongue, Yoojin Grace Wuertz / 4. In the train, Alice Reyhtman / 5. Boot Theory, Richard Siken / 6. Spirited Away, dir. Hayao Miyazaki / 7. Gate A-4, Naomi Shihab Nye / 8. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, dir. Peter Jackson / 9. America is Not the Heart, Elaine Castillo

love looks like my dad waking me up at 4:30 in the morning while my mom prepares my protein shake and sandwich before I leave for training; resting my head in my best friend’s lap as she strokes my hair while our athletics coach gives us an after-class pep talk; coming home to my mom having a headache, sending her to bed and coming 5 minutes later with a cup of hot chai and a crocin tablet; how my sister saves everything, even 5 rupee chocolates just to share with me; that picture of my dad holding a baby me while absolutely beaming with pride and joy; my cousin and I pelting each other with water balloons on holi like siblings even though I’m seeing him for the first time in years; the way my dadi and I repeat the word “bye” a thousand times before putting the phone down; my crush telling me that I was the only person he could be himself with; my friend running and throwing herself into my arms as hello after we hadn’t seen each other in days; my elementary school best friend and I doing everything while holding hands, despite my being unpopular she never let go of my hand; mutuals on tumblr tagging each other in cat pictures and posts about oranges; it looks like pulling out my kiddie makeup kit in 3rd grade just to see my friend make his fake-puke face while we waited for our turn during the annual school performance; my mother’s face lighting up when her mother calls her every day- love has so many forms and ways of expressions, that it’s hard to comprehend how loved one can be. just look around, look at the little things, my dears, and you’ll know what love can be. (inspired by @chaandajaan  )

Chen Chen, from When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities; “Elegy”

ocean vuong, on earth we're briefly gorgeous

suzanne rivecca, ugly, bitter, and true

anne carson, plainwater

miranda july / don delillo / holly warburton / richard siken / aaron diaz / ross gay / robert anton wilson / david foster wallace