not as smart as i think i am by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
1K notes
·
View notes
am i a horrible person?
maria flook strangers: many perfect examples \\ cristin o'keefe aptowicz july \\ maria flook strangers: many perfect examples \\ ugochukwu damian okpara my mother makes memories crawl on my skin \\ maria flook strangers: many perfect examples \\ melissa albert
kofi
166 notes
·
View notes
Not Doing Something Wrong Isn't the Same as Doing Something Right - Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
25 notes
·
View notes
July, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
0 notes
Started reading last night (via audiobook): Dr. Mutter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
0 notes
A poem by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
July
The figs we ate wrapped in bacon.
The gelato we consumed greedily:
coconut milk, clove, fresh pear.
How we’d dump hot espresso on it
just to watch it melt, licking our spoons
clean. The potatoes fried in duck fat,
the salt we’d suck off our fingers,
the eggs we’d watch get beaten
’til they were a dizzying bright yellow,
how their edges crisped in the pan.
The pink salt blossom of prosciutto
we pulled apart with our hands, melted
on our eager tongues. The green herbs
with goat cheese, the aged brie paired
with a small pot of strawberry jam,
the final sour cherry we kept politely
pushing onto each other’s plate, saying,
No, you. But it’s so good. No, it’s yours.
How I finally put an end to it, plucked it
from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth.
How good it tasted: so sweet and so tart.
How good it felt: to want something and
pretend you don’t, and to get it anyway.
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
More poems by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz are available through her website.
0 notes
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz - July
The figs we ate wrapped in bacon.
The gelato we consumed greedily:
coconut milk, clove, fresh pear.
How we’d dump hot espresso on it
just to watch it melt, licking our spoons
clean. The potatoes fried in duck fat,
the salt we’d suck off our fingers,
the eggs we’d watch get beaten
’til they were a dizzying bright yellow,
how their edges crisped in the pan.
The pink salt blossom of prosciutto
we pulled apart with our hands, melted
on our eager tongues. The green herbs
with goat cheese, the aged brie paired
with a small pot of strawberry jam,
the final sour cherry we kept politely
pushing onto each other’s plate, saying,
No, you. But it’s so good. No, it’s yours.
How I finally put an end to it, plucked it
from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth.
How good it tasted: so sweet and so tart.
How good it felt: to want something and
pretend you don’t, and to get it anyway.
- July by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
1 note
·
View note
You probably don’t remember this discussion. Nor should you have, really, since it is no the role of the crush to remember. The crush simply exists. It is the role of the crushed to record.
Excerpt From: "Dear Future Boyfriend" by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. Scribd.
This material may be protected by copyright.
Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/257695077
1 note
·
View note
[...] In my defense, how when we just sat listening to each other breathe, he said, “This is enough.” — (Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz)
430 notes
·
View notes
not doing something wrong isn’t the same as doing something right by cristin o'keefe aptowicz
18 notes
·
View notes
— Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, from “How to Love the Empty Air”
333 notes
·
View notes
Who are your favorite poets? :)
AHHHHHH omg I haven't been able to talk about poetry in SO long.
First, the classics. I am not huge on William Shakespeare's plays, but I do like his poetry. Oscar Wilde is just an icon. I like a lot of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Emily Dickinson. I HAVE to mention Edgar Allen Poe because he's from my state but honestly, I like his overall ideas over his execution most of the time. Joyce Kilmer wrote one of my favorite poems of all time, "Trees."
Moving closer to the present day, there's Allen Ginsberg. Howl changed how I understood poetry as a whole. Shel Silverstein taught me what poetry was in the first place. I also enjoy Edward Albee and Joyce Carol Oates.
Getting into poets who are writing right now, Maggie Nelson wrote this collection of poems called Bluets that I adore. I also got to take a seminar with her through my college. Finally, I saw Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz give a reading and she was just... mezmorizing. Honestly, poetry is meant to be performed, which is why I haven't read much since college. But if someone invites me to a poetry reading, I am so there.
My favorite collection of poems is Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs. It is just what it sounds like and yes it made me sob uncontrollably by the end.
Curious to know if you or any of my other mutuals have thoughts about poetry!
6 notes
·
View notes
April 3, 2023: Picture This, Jiordan Castle
Picture This
Jiordan Castle
I feel bad for the inventor of Comic Sans.
I, too, have made mistakes.
Like opening the bathroom door in a bar
to a stranger rag-dolled on the toilet,
her face closed for the night.
I, too, wanted
the impossible—to carve a hole in the floor,
retreat
into lost time. Earn someone’s forgiveness,
maybe even
my own. But, instead,
I accidentally invented panic, then futility.
I wanted to forget
what I had seen, who I had been,
so I turned us both into flowers.
I invented bees
and a yellow bird to watch over us,
but it wasn’t enough.
Others had already invented doom
and repetition.
I cut myself
a break, fashioned a little
more time—enough to learn
which mistakes were mine to make.
--
Today in...
2022: Alba, Madeleine Cravens
2021: July, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
2020: Poem Beginning With A Retweet, Maggie Smith
2019: Waiting for Happiness, Nomi Stone
2018: United, Naomi Shihab Nye
2017: If You Are Over Staying Woke, Morgan Parker
2016: High School Senior, Sharon Olds
2015: Dog in Bed, Joyce Sidman
2014: Persephone Writes to Her Mother, Tara Mae Mulroy
2013: Hook, James Wright
2012: How to Build an Owl, Kathleen Lynch
2011: Expecting, Kevin Young
2010: The Choir, Luke Kennard
2009: I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone, Stephen Dunn
2008: Visible World, Richard Siken
2007: Anywhere Else, Maggie Dietz
2006: After Work, Richard Jones
2005: The Sheep-Child, James Dickey
28 notes
·
View notes
My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead
ARE YOU DEAD? is the subject line of her email.
The text outlines the numerous ways she thinks
I could have died: slain by an axe-murderer, lifeless
on the side of a highway, choked to death by smoke
since I'm a city girl and likely didn't realize you needed
to open the chimney flue before making a fire (and,
if I do happen to be alive, here's a link to a YouTube
video on fireplace safety that I should watch). Mom
muses about the point of writing this email. If I am
already dead, which is what she suspects, I wouldn't
be able to read it. And if I'm alive, what kind of daughter
am I not to write her own mother to let her know
that I've arrived at my fancy residency, safe and sound,
and then to immediately send pictures of everything,
like I promised her! If this was a crime show, she posits,
the detective might accuse her of sending this email
as a cover up for murder. How could she be the murderer,
if she wrote an email to her daughter asking if she was murdered?
her defense lawyers would argue at the trial. In fact,
now that she thinks of it, this email is the perfect alibi
for murdering me. And that is something I should
definitely keep in mind, if I don't write her back
as soon as I have a free goddamn second to spare.
- Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, "My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead", how to love the empty air
11 notes
·
View notes