Rainlyn - Violets Came And Daffodils

Memory

by Margaret Atwood

Memory is not in the head only. It’s midnight, you existed once, you exist again, my entire skin sensitive as an eye, imprint of you glowing against me, burnt-out match in a dark room.

Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse

I don’t want to be the owner of your fantasy, I just want to be a part of your family

Frida Kahlo to Marty McConnell

by Marty McConnell

leaving is not enough; you must stay gone. train your heart like a dog. change the locks even on the house he’s never visited. you lucky, lucky girl. you have an apartment just your size. a bathtub full of tea. a heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. don’t wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. you had to have him. and you did. and now you pull down the bridge between your houses. you make him call before he visits. you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. don’t lose too much weight. stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. and you are not stupid. you loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. heart like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas. heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street.

witness by Crystal Wilkinson

I’M GOING BACK TO MINNESOTA WHERE SADNESS MAKES SENSE

by Danez Smith

O California, don’t you know the sun is only a god if you learn to starve for him? I’m bored with the ocean I stood at the lip of it, dressed in down, praying for snow I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous at least in this land where the trees always bear green. I know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful. Have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California? The sun above you, the snow & stalled sea — a field of mirror all demanding to be the sun too, everything around you is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you & it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles & the only thing that can’t shine.

ode to emptiness by Sally Wen Mao

may to december by Megan Fernandes

hey just so you know the harder i swim the faster i sink if you even care