Cynthia Macdonald, From A Poem Titled "By The Sea," Featured In A Century Of Poetry In The New Yorker

Simone de Beauvoir, from a diary entry featured in Diary of a Philosophy Student

Courtney Marie Andrews, from Old Monarch: Poems; “Against all odds”

[Text ID: “I am sorry. I love you. I cherish you. Our sweet memories are a museum in which I have a lifelong admission.”]

Ilya Kaminsky, from "A Cigarette", Deaf Republic

If my poetry & prose don’t feel like this song; I won’t write them. ( I )

Franz Kafka, 1912

How is it that you're always on my mind, even when I'm not trying to think of you?

The Awakening Of The Poet, Gabriel Ferrier (1899)

— Danez Smith, from "summer, somewhere" (via lunamonchtuna)

Sometimes it feels like a lie to call myself a poet --

The world is a gorgeous, ethereal place --

All I've ever done is, do my best to use what little words I have to tell you what my eyes have happened to see, and, what my heart has happened to feel.

I'm just another of life's many plagiarists --

Stealing experiences for myself and pretending they're words born from my soul --

So what's the term, then, when the universe's machinations bring me across someone like you, and my heart is filled with so many words that I could write a thousand novels?

A poet?

A thief?

Or simply a woman with a mind, taken, filled to the brim by chance, with desire, need, and affection?

"Could you even describe the warmth of a glowing moon?" V. Rue, 2025.