Albert Camus, From A Letter To María Casares Featured In Correspondance, 1944-1959 (my Translation)

— Anna Akhmatova

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, from a letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley, featured in The Letters of Mary Shelley

Joy Sullivan, from Instructions for Traveling West: Poems; “Instructions for Traveling West”

[Text ID: “you’re homesick / for all the lives / you’re not living.”]

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.

sonder

Margaret Atwood, from a poem titled "The Singer of Owls," featured in Paper Boat: Selected Poems

Anaïs Nin, from a diary entry featured in The Diary of Anaïs Nin Volume 1 1931-1934