i do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own
i want to be so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of us combined
could set it on fire

Rupi Kaur

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. "

Mark Twain

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

I need to feel strongly, to love and to admire, just as desperately as I need to breathe. A letter from a friend, a Balthus painting on a postcard, a page of Saint-Simon, give meaning to the passing hours. But to keep my mind sharp, to avoid descending into resigned indifference, I maintain a level of resentment and anger, neither too much nor too little, just as a pressure cooker has a safety valve to keep it from exploding.

Jean-Dominique Bauby

Sawdust and Diamonds

Sing, I will swallow your sadness, and eat your cold clay
Just to lift your long face
And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
Your precious longface
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate
Why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
Why the long face?

Though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break
Still, my dear, I'd have walked you to the very edge of the water
And they will recognize all the lines of your face
In the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter

Darling, we will be fine; but what was yours and mine
Appears to me a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
But if it's all just the same, then will you say my name;
Say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks

From the top of the flight
of the wide, white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?

Joanna Newsom

Success

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

船在湖上走，人在畫中遊.

Like Janis

And you measure for wealth by the things you can hold
And you measure for love by the sweet things you're told
And you live in the past or a dream that you're in
And your selfishness is your cardinal sin

And you want to be held with highest regard
It delights you so much if he's trying so hard
And you try to conceal your ordinary ways
With a smile or a shrug or some stolen cliche

But don't you understand
And don't you look about
I'm trying to take nothing from you
So why should you act so put out for me?

"Cause emotionally you're the same basic trip
And you know that I know of the times that you've slipped
So don't try to impress me, you're just pins and paint
And don't try to charm me with the things that you ain't

And don't try to enchant me with your manner of dress
'Cause a monkey in silk is a monkey no less
So measure for measure reflect on my said
And when I won't see you then measure it dead

'Cause don't you understand
And don't you look about
I'm trying to take nothing from you
So why should you act so put out
And sit there in wonder and doubt for me?

Rodriguez

Dream State

Without you, I am surely the last of our kind.
Without you, I am surely the last of my kind.

Lucy Dacus

Empire Builder

This is not an escape

But I don't know how to hold someone 

without losing my grip

You'll say I was bound to leave

Since I first stepped across the border

Since I crawled into your skin

Thought I heard you whisper in the dark

That you knew where the light would be

Thought I saw your shape against the black

Thought I felt you moving beside me

We are not alone and we are more alone

than we've ever been

So hurry up and lose me

Hurry up and find me again

So I'll pass the lumber mills

I"ll pass the coal mines and the parks 

and the dried up oil fields

I'll pass a thousand lonely pines

that bend their backs against the sun

But I'll mistake the station birds 

for the sound of my phone ringing

Thought I heard you whisper in the dark

that you knew where the light would be

Don't wait for me to walk a straight line

You can only hold your breath so long

We are not alone and we are more alone 

than we've ever been

So hurry up and lose me

Hurry up and find me again

I am no less bound to you

Than when I crossed into your silence

when I held your solitude

But you never liked it when I'd play dead

and you wondered why my love songs 

are always the grieving kind

Why I wander off the search for 

my reflection in the crowd

Oh, forget I said love

and also, don't forget I said love

We are not alone and we are more alone 

than we've ever been

So hurry up and lose me

Hurry up and find me again

Laura Gibson

Plastic

I know what is to be broke and then be bold
Tell you that my silver is gold
Though I'm much too old for make believe
And I know what it's like to be hold and not be held
Funny how a stomach can fail
Seems that it's not cause it's swell and swollen

You got me
Shootin' cross the sky like a star
But nobody told me
To never let it get too far
See my silhouette, so you're standing scared of me
Can I  tell you a secret?

My wings are made of plastic
My wings are made up
and so am I

Moses Sumney

Someday We'll Linger in the Sun

Our love's a complex vintage wine
All rotted leaves and lemon rind
I'd spit you out but now you're mine

We bit the fruit, it seemed a lie
I'll never know which way was right
Now side by side we face the night

And I love you
And I love you

We walked the pier and back again
It was the most scared I've ever been
You held my hand until the end

And I love you
And I love you

Don't tell me we've got time
The subtle thief of life
It slips away when we pay no mind

We pulled the weeds out till the dawn
Nearly too tired to carry on
Someday we'll linger in the sun

Gaelynn Lea

FEBRUARY 29

An extra day—

Like the painting's fifth cow,
who looks out directly,
straight toward you,
from inside her black and white spots.

And extra day—

Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real
as a drunk trips over a threshold
too low to see.

An extra day—

With a second cup of black coffee.
A friendly but businesslike phone call.
A mailed-back package.
Some extra work, but not too much—
just one day's worth, exactly.

An extra day—

Not unlike the space
between a door and its frame
when one room is lit and another is not,
and one changes into the other
as a woman exchanges a scarf.

And extra day—

Extraordinarily like any other
And still
there is some generosity to it,
like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.

Jane Hirshfield

Dr. Seuss

Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment
until it becomes a memory.

Forget About

You made me forget about
Have, want, exert
And all of a sudden, I feel proud
Of being, without saying a word

You made me forget about
Past and pain
Time, you washed out
Like a soft, sudden, summer rain

You do me good
You do me so good
You made me forget about

You made me forget about
Have, want, and exert
And off a sudden, I found out
Oh it's beautiful the way you wear your shirt
You do me good, you made me forget about

Sibylle Baier

Divers

The diver is my love
And I am his, if I am not deceived
Who takes one breathe above, for every hour below the sea
Who gave me a jewel worth twice this woman's life
But would cost her less than laying at low tide
To see her true love phosphoresce

And in an infinite regress
Tell me, why is the pain of birth
Lighter borne than the pain of death?
I ain't saying that I loved you first,
but I loved you best

I know we must abide
Each by the rules that bind us here
The divers, and the sailors, and the women in the piece
But how do you choose your form?
How do you choose your name? How do you choose your life?
How do you choose the time you must exhale
and kick, and rise?

And in an infinite capsize
Like a bull tearing down the coast,
Double hull bearing double masts
I don't know if you loved me most
but you love me last.

Recall the word you gave
To count your way across the depths of this arid world,
Where you would yoke the waves and lay in bed of shining pearls
I dream it every night
The ringing of the pail
The motes of sand dislodged
The shucking, quick and bright
The twinned and cast-off shells reveal a single heart of white

And in an infinite backslide
Ancient border, sink past the West
Like a sword at the bearer's fall
I can't claim that I knew you best
but did you know me at all?

A woman is alive, a woman is alive
You do not take her for a sign in nacre on a stone,
Alone, unaffected and fine
And never will I wed
I'll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life
And ever hold my breath till I may be the diver's wife

See how the infinite divides
And the divers are not to blame
For the rift, spanning distant shores
You don't know my name
but I know yours

Joanna Newsom

Watching the Wheels

People say I'm crazy, doing what I'm doing
Well, they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm okay, well, they look at me kinda strange
"Surely, you're not happy now, you no longer play the game"

People say I'm lazy, dreaming my life away
Well, they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
"Don't you miss the big time, boy. You're no longer on the ball"

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ahhh, people ask me questions, lost in confusion
Well, I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well, they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry, I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

John Lennon

Sestina

You
used
to
love
me
well.

Well,
you—
me—
used
love
to...

to...
well...
love.
You
used
me.

Me,
too,
used...
well...
you.
Love,

love
me.
You,
too
well
used,

used
love
well.
Me,
too.
You!

You used
to love
me well.

Ciara Shuttleworth

Night Film

I stared at her. She was definitely not from New York. This one screamed Recent grad of Ohio State with a degree in the dramatic arts. Something told me she'd probably played a Pink Lady in some abysmal production of Grease and when someone asked her who she was, she said I'm an actor in the same breathy voice I'd seen people in AA announce I'm an alcoholic. Girls like her moved here by the truckload, hoping to be discovered and to meet Mr. Big but too often ended up in bars in Murray Hill wearing black dresses from Banana Republic, Band-Aids over the blisters on their heels. They'd get their I'll Take Manhattan taken off them soon enough. To live in this city for any extended period of time required masochism, moral flexibility, skin like an alligator's, and mad jack-in-the-box resilience- none of which these faux-confident twenty-very-littles could even begin to wrap their heads around. Within five years she'd be running home to her parents, a boyfriend named Wayne, and a job at her old high school, teaching movement.

Marisha Pessl

Death with Dignity

Spirit of my silence I can hear you
but I'm afraid to be near you
And I don't know where to begin

Somewhere in the desert there's a forest
and an acre before us
But I don't know where to begin
Again I lost my strength completely
or be near me tired old mare
With the wind in your hair

Amethyst and flowers on the table
is it real or a fable?
Well I suppose a friend is a friend
And we all know how this will end

Chimney swift that finds me be my keeper
silhouette on the seater
What is that song you sing for the dead?
I see the signal searchlight strike me
in the window of my room
Well I got nothing to prove

I forgive you mother I can hear you
and I long to be near you
But every road leads to an end
Your aberration passes through me
in the willows and five red hens
You'll never see us again

Sufjan Stevens

The Liars' Club

"That world was long gone before my birth, but I remember it."

Mary Karr