It Is Cold In This Thing We Call A Body. / Who Will Tend To The Fire With So Few Hands To Go Around?

I do not want to name it, / I want to watch it faint / heart-beat, pulse-beat / as it quivers, I do not want / to talk about it, / I want to minimize thought / concentrate on it / till I shrink, / dematerialize / and am drawn into it.

H.D., from Selected Poems; “Tribute to the Angel,” (via xshayarsha)

On turning  24 and shedding skin

I walked through being 23 empty-handed & lonesome; stripped off the warmth in the mold that casted my existence. A complete year away from the lands I used to call home. Being 23 was very much about trying to become both tender as the blue in the sky & daredevil as the red dancing in flames. In aiming to be everything, life felt wilder than ever before; in aiming for the sun, my thinking sometimes got reduced to mere shorthand. A year I finally dared to flood. And in doing so, I ran face first into several walls that tore open my skin. I learned that some people will lie straight to your face; and it’s not like in the Hollywood realm where an evil look or a stuttering voice will give away their lying. It’s usually the opposite: pretty, very pretty smiles that will convince you to run barefoot on shattered glass. It took time and guts to wrap my head around the idea that it’s okay to walk into these labyrinths; to understand that some of the doors we open will lead to black holes and it’s not a crime but nature to let the body get absorbed into the void. 

Nature as living art. Nature as force. Nature as the shadows of our dreams. Nature as morning walks. Nature as being. My 23s were all about nature and my relationship with her. It felt like befriending a neighbor and finding out they’re cool as fuck: ‘hey you’ve always been there and it’s just now that I realize I’ve been missing out on great things all these years’. I bonded with nature and her frozen whites, vivid greens and Mediterranean blues. She held my hand and walked me barefoot through silent rainforest. She looked at me with eyes that shouted ‘dare to become’. And then it hit me: I’m more ready than ever to touch the world with my bare hands... even if it melts down in flames.

I washed my broken heart with beach waves and sunsets. I stitched my battle scars with threads of leftover love. I stood in a sea of strangers, without hangover, whatsoever. I am every invisible painting on your skin. You wish they were from my lips and my fingertips. I am the silence in your living room You wish we could dance together on thirty-second floor without music on. I am those deep conversations you wish you could have from a stormy evening until sunny morning. But you didn’t get it, did you? Women like me don’t take weak men Men who couldn’t handle their chaos wouldn’t be able to handle ours. Men who come back would always be unwelcome. I was the decision you didn’t make. I was the war you didn’t fight for. I am a place you can’t come home to. There’s no point crawling back to me. I’m over you.

Shaine Salcedo, The City Doesn’t Hum Your Name Anymore (via wnq-writers)

on my way to the airport to pick up my mother. her first time in Europe, her first time crossing an entire ocean... we haven't seen each other in almost two years & it all feels as if i'm defying the rules of existing; bodies usually explode when exposed to such levels of luminous love & nostalgia

more sunrises and less screen time.

more loving and less comparing love.

more happiness and less posting “happy” pictures on instagram.

more living in the now and less worrying about what hasn’t happened.

more tumblr and less instagram.

more yoga and less hitting snooze in the morning.

more real conversations and less talking about how drunk we got the night before.

more peace and less judgement.

more simplicity and less impulse buying.

more water and less coffee.

more self-love and less looking for love.

more living with intent and less having the wrong intentions.

more being responsible and less not studying for important things.

more music/books and less television.

more deep breaths and less not being able to control my life.

more forgiveness and less anger.

more self-soul searching and less looking for another soul right now.

– Anne Carson, “Short Talk on Van Gogh”

relationships (2016)