the River of forgetfulness

The girl wrote a story.

“But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel,” said her mother.

The girl built a dollhouse.

“But how much better if it were a real house,” her mother said.

The girl made a small pillow for her father.

“But wouldn’t a quilt be more practical,” said her mother.

The girl dug a small hole in the garden.

“But how much better if you dug a large hole,” said her mother.

The girl dug a hole and went to sleep in it.

“But how much better if you slept forever,” said her mother.

~Lydia Davis

"…him whom she awaits she is fleeing from…"

"She calls him and rejects him (she loves him)."

~Hélène Cixous

I could believe the soul is a crater.

- the impact of your hands on my chest.

Fingertips & lips, forest & fire.

You taste like cinnamon, or cyanide. 

~

C. T. Salazar

“Do you have any weapons on you?

I have a longing that’s killing me.”

~

by Mahmoud Darwish

walls of earth collapse

eating up the rectangle of sky and

i become the dark, coffee-black

under the heavy mantle—

a bride’s veil, a child’s shroud—

i would die, i would die for him

want of my afterlife, brand on my chest

do whatever you like with me.

— Akwaeke Emezi

Be near me now,
My tormenter, my love, be near me—
At this hour when night comes down,
When, having drunk from the gash of sunset, darkness comes
With the balm of musk in its hands, its diamond lancets,
When it comes with cries of lamentation,
with laughter with songs;
Its blue-gray anklets of pain clinking with every step.
At this hour when hearts, deep in their hiding places,
Have begun to hope once more...

~Faiz Ahmed Faiz

In the tight binding of love’s bonds lies their unbinding.

Thus great liberation is to be had in the bonds themselves.

My love, I was afraid the rope of your love might be weak so I doubled the strands of my love for you.“

Ha Yong-un

They thought death was worth it, but I
Have a self to recover, a queen.
Is she dead, is she sleeping?
Where has she been,
With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?

Now she is flying
More terrible than she ever was, red
Scar in the sky, red comet
Over the engine that killed her ----
The mausoleum, the wax house.

~Sylvia Plath

 "we disappear.

It happens to me frequently.

You disappear?

Yes and then come back.

Moments of death I call them."

~Anne Carson

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves— 
And Immortality.

~Emily Dickinson