“Then you have not only ruined my life. You have taken pleasure in doing so. (...) You have not only planted the dagger in my breast, you have delighted in twisting it.”
I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I make light I refuse I refuse I refuse I offer up my body I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I live I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I imagine elsewhere I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I withhold I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I refuse I persist I refuse I reuse I refuse
I
am not
an object
I went to the desert for Burning Man and did not see the Man burn—the culmination, the catharsis, the highlight, the point. It was me burning, my old self, that I had been after all along. I wanted to shake it loose, my old ways, rules, teaching. I was a phoenix; I wanted to burn. I was a circle of stars, silver in the night sky. It was me: I was the spectacle in the desert I had traveled so far to see.
— Sejal Shah, from “Your Wilderness Is Not Permanent,” This Is One Way to Dance (via lifeinpoetry)
Once I had turned into light,
things came easily to me,
things like light and more light,
fire beneath the skin, eyes burned
into sheets at night, the way a certain boy
might kiss me.
— Catie Rosemurgy, from “My Mom’s Cobalt-Blue Glass Collection, My Favorite Apocalypse
“She takes it. Took it. Will take it. No one has forced her. She cannot know what it will do to her mouth, heart, eyes, eyebrows—to taste it. Call it starfruit, sex, apple, cocaine, x, whatever. Does she take it? Yes. She takes it. It tastes good to her. It tastes good to her. It tastes good to her.”
— Aracelis Girmay, “On the Shape of the Sentence,” Kingdom Animalia
(via lifeinpoetry)
What comes after
we hurt each other?
It gets really quiet.
We do or do not get out of bed.
Like birds there comes an astonishment of
kindnesses.
Hello.
Hello.
Light slams into snow.
— Kerri Webster, from “Swan/Not Swan,” The Trailhead
we live inside the sound waves transmitting a distress call on the police radio in a cop car. the cop inside the car is dead but the car is still driving and the car is on fire. because we have no hands we cant stop the car. because we have no teeth we can’t eat the cop for nourishment. because we have no eyes we cant see that everything outside of the security glass is equally on fire. because we have no mouths we cant speak to reassure each other we will stop eventually. because we have nothing we cant understand that this equally means more and less but at the same time.
“This is the house that built me and I’m gonna burn it down. This is the river I crawled from and I refuse to drown here. And bless the strippers but fuck the men. And bless the berries but fuck the farm. And bless the daughter but fuck the family. What is a home if not the first place you learn to run from? You’ve got to bite the hand that starves you, and in doing so Praise the place that birthed you. Birthed you fucked up. Birthed you ugly, and interesting, and ready to scream.”
— Courtney Love Prays To Oregon, Clementine von Radics
“What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure — as a mere automaton of duty?”