"Salinger, I’m sorry, but “Don’t ever tell
anybody anything” is a string of words
I would like to wrap up in canvas and sink
to the bottom of the Hudson, or extract
by laser from the ribcage of all of us
who ever believed it, who felt afraid
to miss someone, to be the last one
standing. “Tell everyone everything” is
not exactly right, but I do believe that if
your mother looks radiant in violet
you should tell her, or when a juvenile
sparrow thrashes its wings in dustpiles
and reminds you of a lover’s eyelashes,
you should say so. We are islands all of us,
but we are also boats, our secrets flares,
pyrotechnic devices by which we signal
there’s someone in here we’re still alive!
So maybe it’s, “don’t be afraid.” We can
rewrite Icarus, flame-resistant feathers,
wax that won’t melt, I mean it, I’ll draw up
a prototype right now, that burning ball
of orange won’t stop us, it’ll be everything
we dream the morning after, even if we fall
into the sea—we are boats, remember?
We are pirates. We move in nautical miles.
Each other’s anchors, each other’s buoys,
the rocket’s red, already the world entire."

“Catch a Body,” Ilse Bendorf (via clavicola)
*

true fax.

"Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source."

*

(Leo Tolstoy) (via nativethoughts)

"Despite its long affiliation with loss, love also accrues: steady accumulation of boxes no longer reserved for shoes; strange tinctures & hollow rings, powdered with sugar or stronger; Kewpie dolls won in dart games & a dozen Trivial Pursuits, series of subsequent editions. And the luggage & the passports & the key-chain souvenirs, all figurative of course: also fashionable & futuristic & fact. You don’t journey alone anymore. There is someone else to think of, to offer the window seat to—or perhaps she prefers the aisle. A twin bed looks suddenly lonely, & moreso the large bed, bereft of multiple bodies. Your pillow adopts her scent; your blankets no longer yours. The whole world pluraled, this second pulse shadowing your own. Old companions less companionable: radio, television—mere background noise. You begin to hear her voice reciting the grocery list or answering the phone. There is an attention to content but also to form. You form your syllables with her presence in mind, tailored to the shape of her body. You anticipate her wishes, her kisses, the warm place she has been sitting, wrapped in one of her sweaters with burly wood buttons & in-folded sleeves. You wonder if you are becoming transparent, if she can always see through you to the seed of your truest intention. Will she warm her hands on the low fire you always keep burning, clandestine & solely for her? Will you remain astonished by her luminous capacities: for pleasure, for penance & pardon? There is with her & without her but never beyond. She has altered your constitution. You find her in miniature & metonym: pretty crescents of her thumb nails, velveteen lobes of her ears. You can no longer watch Jeopardy! in solitude. Marlboro lights & lucky bamboo trigger visceral reminiscences. And the tatters on your map, torn together: Rapid City, South Dakota, Niagara Falls, Mount Shasta’s elaborate & surreal setting sun. You remember bookcases in Nancy Drew stories, how they almost always hid the mystery stairs. She has passed through those passageways now; she has found your counterfeit copy of Great Expectations & tipped it just so, exposing the secret threshold. And the safe behind the picture with the traveling eyes, & the skeleton key sequestered in the flower pot, & all that spare change lining the sofa cushions. Not piracy or bribery, but a deep & unencumbered knowing. You have climbed into the hold together. You have sifted through the treasure. And each day past, & every day forward, you have crossed your hearts & murmured something about honor. You have ridden bicycles with cross-hatched baskets stuffed full to brimming with roses, all figurative of course: also tender & romantic & accurate beyond accounting. There have been no altars, nor will there be, but extraordinary kindnesses & tokens whose meanings exceed the scope of words. You have handled handkerchiefs & checkbooks & gold pocket-watches, meting out an uncertain number of hours. You have made public parables & private apologies. You have swept chimneys & taken out the ash. You have stood together on the fire escape of a condemned building. You have crossed your hearts & promised not to die."

Julie Marie Wade, “There’s no hole on earth where the heart drops through without bringing something with it.” (via holdonmagnolia)

(via prettierinthedark)