—Warsan Shire (via c-oquetry)
(Source: skintones, via vintagesoulyoungheart)
—Lucille Clifton
(Source: ahuntersheart, via awritersruminations)
hurling crowbirds at mockingbars; buddy wakefield
(Source: debilitating, via fuckyeahbuddywakefield)
Alysia Harris and Miles Hodges performing “Doing It Wrong”
(Source: lovemeuntilyourheartbursts)
— Safia Elhillo. 30/30
(Source: oddballsdontbounce)
in the world you left behind
eyes ache for want of tears
and all i’ve learned of love is giving
cradling, making fat the borrowed flesh
with everything the heart evicts
but how this left you, how desperate
and though you found its beauty,
i cannot. this relishing of ugly,
the set of the forgiving mouth in a kiss, i cannot
and it has made me so bitter. you are
the martyr of our kind of woman
but nothing changes the way the story ends
and despite the colors, the sinister need to celebrate at altars bright as blood,
i cannot forget the loneliness,
cannot help but imagine how it chewed off all your fingers,
painted its trails along your mouth
i have learned these parts already
fold me a body-colored map, as vague as you need it to be
please
teach me not to end this way.
(Source: oddballsdontbounce)
Dear John,
what other women have known the notes traced into your palms?
did Alice’s fingers coax from you
the same songs you loosened from my throat?
who is Naima?
and why does the melody in her memorial
spill such a longing out of me?
please don’t tell me that you love her,
but do you not?
Questions for John Coltrane, from his saxophone by Safia Elhillo.
(Source: oreosandheartbreaks)
Safia Elhillo performing “Egypt”.
“this is not a vague political statement to make my Twitter look worldly
there are no T-shirts for this
this is not a poem
this is my mother
my brother…”
(Source: oddballsdontbounce)
to the one who leaves i say
want me
here are all my prayers take them
here is all my skin stain it
just stay
just stay
let me show you all the home i’ve gotand to the ones who love me, i say
no
there is no more heartspace
with all this loss i’ve got to mourn
all this noise that keeps me trapped
behind a face i did not ask for
get out i am too lonely
too far left behind
too full of names mispronounced as prayer
no no no no
please leave please leave
i cannot love you until you forget me.
(Source: oddballsdontbounce)
—
Buddy Wakefield
-Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars
She is dark, she is dark. She is reading about God. I am God…
-Charles Bukowski
i think i know what we did wrong.
-
we loved like two people
who did not know god.
(as if we had not used
every prayer
every surah
every ayah
asking god for
something like this)
subhanallah,
what a shame.
-Warsan Shire
…It will always be this poem.
How infinitely beautiful is she?
(Source: kingxnova)
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
“I don’t know when love became elusive what i know, is that no one i know has it my fathers arms around my mothers neck fruit too ripe to eat, a door half way open when your name is a just a hand i can never hold everything i have ever believed in, becomes magic. i think of lovers as trees, growing to and from one another searching for the same light, my mothers laughter in a dark room, a photograph greying under my touch, this is all i know how to do, carry loss around until i begin to resemble every bad memory, every terrible fear, every nightmare anyone has ever had. i ask did you ever love me? you say of course, of course so quickly that you sound like someone else i ask are you made of steel? are you made of iron? you cry on the phone, my stomach hurts i let you leave, i need someone who knows how to stay.”—
