I Have Come To A Conclusion, After Mulling It Over For A While, That Happiness Has Been Been Cast Off

🌼 poems that held my hand in may 🌼

Nocturne, Li-Young Lee

Your Name, Vahan Tekeyan

Sonnets to Orpheus 2;29, Rainer Maria Rilke

I stopped going to therapy, Clementine von Radics

Miyazaki Bloom, Nina Mingya Powles  

The Quiet Machine, Ada Limón

When we two parted, Lord Byron

Fragment, Amy Lowell

The Want of You, Angelina Weld Grimké

When Did It Happen?, Mary Oliver

Alone, Sara Teasdale

Peace XVIII, Khalil Gibran

“Taking refuge in the abandoned terrace, forsaken by all but me, an odd squirrel or two, a lone bird, watched the crippling ivy of despair wound itself around the child of sorrow I had let in to warm herself by my slowly smouldering hearth. Gently she knelt, oh so softly she sang, bewitched me into thinking the house was freezing, coal upon coal I blindly shoved unto the fire, and whom was the blazing house to blame? for t’was never a home.”

god i missed tumblr

Literary history that happened on 8 July

*goes to the top of a cliff and and whispers to a bird which obviously doesn’t care, “It’s my birthday today” and is met with a blank stare and an indignant ruffle and is left with the words echoing emptily across the hillside*

Finalities

My hands have grown tired of writing about you Though the scars long since have faded into skin Smooth, edge-less, no longer promising red, A mother's daughter through out and through in.

Sleep is less tiresome, and all my work once done Leaves me fiddling with spare hours at the table, Twisting them in and out of a ring that shines on My fourth finger - chipped from the old fable Where the kindest doves would nip down at the Lover who wore your shoes, and drive her out Barefoot into the night - where you only yesterday Curled up under, melting tears into silent clout.

But there, it is a fable other hands have written, An embrace where other shoulders found shelter, And many others yet found tranquilled lethe. Mine is not a story foretold, perhaps for the better.

It has been very long.

Perhaps the lack of a proper Farewell kept me from exiting the scene definitely, so here I am, properly clad in mourning white, clutching at a handkerchief and a bouquet of marigolds. Marigolds in our country are worn in the hair and as necklaces by the bride. Who am I being given away to? From where I stand, it looks like a pyre, where one is burnt with her dead lover. I began to write for you, dearest, and so I shall stop for you, for you are gone. Other fingers now are exploring the crook in your smile, the scar on your hip. Other hands hold yours as you gaze into the deathly moon on quiet summer nights. Other songs nest in your head, ones you and her share.

And here, here I am. Pinning myself to every chord you ever sang to me, but never will once again.

I shall not love again.

I’ve been unnaturally happy all day and I am not sure if this is a good thing *throws phone up in the air and laughs idiotically while silly songs play really loudly in the background*

Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place // Chen Chen, When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities // Warsan Shire, Conversations About Home // Fatimah Asghar, Partition // Aysha, Diaspora Defiance // Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous // Kaveh Akbar, Do You Speak Persian? // Safia Elhillo, Date Night With Abdelhalim Hafez // Gustavo Perez Firmat, Bilingual Blues // Scherezade Siobhan, How to Welcome the Dead

Rained yesterday. went upstairs and sat on a wall for the best part of an hour with my legs folded and eyes closed. spiritual experience.