high five!

“Modern Declaration” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never        having wavered In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the        rich or in the presence of clergymen· having denied these        loves; Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having        grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of these        loves; Never when anxious to land a job having diminished them by        a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink Jeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers        of their alert enemies; declare That I shall love you always. No matter what party is in power; No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied        interests wins the war; Shall love you always.

Small Kindnesses

by Danusha Lameris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

Laura Brown-Lavoie performs Titanic at the Women of the World Poetry Slam 2013.

we’re replacing our cabinet knobs because we can’t change the world, but we can change our hardware.

Kelli Russell Agodon’s “Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror”

Natalie Wee, “Cartilage”

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.

BY MAGGIE SMITH

We go forward.

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VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God

Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you could be cured with a hot bath, says God through the manhole covers, but you want magic, to win the lottery you never bought a ticket for. (Tenderly, the monks chant, embrace the suffering.) The voice never panders, offers no five-year plan, no long-term solution, no edicts from a cloudy white beard hooked over ears. It is small and fond and local. Don’t look for your initials in the geese honking overhead or to see through the glass even darkly. It says the most obvious shit, i.e. Put down that gun, you need a sandwich.

Mary Karr

It’s not about adding diversity for the sake of diversity, it’s about subtracting homogeneity for the sake of realism.

Mary Robinette Kowal (via offscreen dispatch)

5. Get Married. Be in a Long Term Relationship. People say they want to end up with someone, they say they want to get married someday, and then what do they do? Everything but what makes that possible. Pick a person and be in a relationship already.

Ryan Holiday