Who Else Literally Does Not Talk

“The bottom line is this: You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it…If there is no moral question, there is no reason to write. I’m an old-fashioned writer and, despite the odds, I want to change the world”

— James Baldwin

CUT FROM THE SOURCE 

I had to let go, 

All those things you said I was 

I unraveled, 

Became undone, 

My bones melted, 

My heart unrest- 

For it won’t stop beating, 

Beating, beating 

Because it knows no less 

I became unplugged, 

Undressed in your layers of 

Manipulation, 

Unleashed from your cage from 

All the ways you  Underestimated me.

Looking through old photos and I found one of my junior homecoming dance. It was the night after my dad's funeral. My friend who'd stayed with me the entire week, in my bed, through all the tears, made me get out of bed that night. She pulled my shirt up over my head and told me to get in the shower. She washed my hair for me. She curled it. She rubbed foundation onto my face, lined my eyes, and put me in my dress.

She contacted my other friends who were feeling awkward and unsure of what to do and told them the party was still on, to meet at my house for photos before the dance.

They all showed up, and I went to the dance, and we all screamed and cried, and I took my first step to healing.

I haven't spoken to that girl in five years. Nothing happened. I moved away. She fell in love. We grew apart and into our own lives.

It's strikes me how beautiful the ephermeral nature of teenage friendships can be.

We may not need each other now, but there was a time when I needed her more than anyone. And sometimes she needed me.

And the universe put us together just then. Just when it was most important. Not a year too late or too soon. The same town, the same school, the same classroom where we could meet. Right when it mattered.

We come and go from people's lives every day, and along the way we may get a chance to love someone fully, just for a little while.

I'll remember every single one.

MOONS 

Tale of two moons, the one in the sky 

And the one in the sea, and 

That’s the way it’ll always be 

Heart to heart

Eye to eye 

Hands apart, and then  They slowly pry

"fuck you my child is completely fine"

your child reads classic literature for fun

my heart is a ripe fruit rotting in my chest

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

I know it’s not much in the face of everything but I have been finding hope & resilience in palestinian poetry these past few weeks and I created a google drive file of poetry collections by palestinian poets that I will keep updating as I keep on reading. I also recommend checking out @fiercynn’s palestinian poets series for more poets + poetry available online

Regrets from a princess,

Or a knight

Let’s call it a night.

My heart beckons me to your every call.

It races, it leaps, frolicking in some poisonous daises.

Why doesn’t it know any better?

Each day is a lesson learned

Each day is a prayer earned.

My hatred for syrup is the same as my feelings- a sticky situation that i can’t get myself out of.

I want to cry

And i cry.

I’m angry

Again.

I’m let down

Again

Colonizers write about flowers. I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks seconds before becoming daisies. I want to be like those poets who care about the moon. Palestinians don’t see the moon from jail cells and prisons. It’s so beautiful, the moon. They’re so beautiful, the flowers.

— Noor Hindi, from “Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying,” DEAR GOD. DEAR BONES. DEAR YELLOW.