When I say I want all of you, I mean even

the chair jammed under the doorknob.

- Andrea Gibson

It is a joy to be hidden and disaster not to be found.

- Donald Winnicott

Each of us at each other’s backs

whispering over and over and over,

Live. Live. Live.

- Andrea Gibson

What I know about living is the pain

is never just ours.

Every time I hurt I know

the wound is an echo, so I keep listening

for the moment the grief becomes a window,

when I can see what I couldn’t see before.

- Andrea Gibson

Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says,

“It is no measure of good health

to be well adjusted to a sick society.”

- Andrea Gibson

You are not alone

in wondering who will be convicted of the crime

of insisting you keep loading your grief

into the chamber of your shame.

You are not weak

just because your heart feels so heavy.

- Andrea Gibson

Some of us know Love

is not the only closet

we will be told never to come out of.

There is also the closet of Grief.

The closet of Sorrow.

The closet of Panic.

- Andrea Gibson

My panic is not a lifeguard,

but you can’t tell my panic that.

My panic googled, “How to perform CPR on yourself.”

- Andrea Gibson

busy with alone

- danez smith

A atomização e a narcisização crescente da sociedade nos ensurdece perante a voz do outro. Levam igualmente à perda da empatia. Hoje, cada um presta homenagem ao culto de si mesmo. Cada um performa e se produz. Não é a personalização algorítmica da rede, mas o desaparecimento do outro, a incapacidade de ouvir atentamente, que é responsável pela crise da democracia.

- Byung-Chul Han, Infocracia: digitalização e a crise da democracia (2022)

As coisas não são todas tão compreensíveis e dizíveis quanto geralmente nos fazem crer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Tell all the truth but tell it slant.

- Emily Dickinson

Hedgehog

Paul Muldoon

The snail moves like a

Hovercraft, held up by a

Rubber cushion of itself,

Sharing its secret

With the hedgehog. The hedgehog

Shares its secret with no one.

We say, Hedgehog, come out

Of yourself and we will love you.

We mean no harm. We want

Only to listen to what

You have to say. We want

Your answers to our questions.

The hedgehog gives nothing

Away, keeping itself to itself.

We wonder what a hedgehog

Has to hide, why it so distrusts.

We forget the god

Under this crown of thorns.

We forget that never again

Will a god trust in the world.

When I sleep I am hungry.

I dream I am eating light.

- James Tate

Sailor’s Song 

Jen Bartman

I am rowing my teacup 

in space. 

Still, sadness 

makes me tired. 

There’s nothing to do 

out here but wait 

until another frightening carnation 

blooms 

in the field

of frightening carnations.