F U L L ♪

"لو كنتِ عارفةً بما يقضي الرّحيلُ لما كتبتِ هباءةً كي ترحلي، هذي أحاديثي التي أعجلتِها لو كنتِ آبهةً بها لم تعجلي أسفي على البيت الذي ناديتُهُ من فرط وحشاتِ الملاجئ: منزلي" —خلود.

Just when you seem to yourself nothing but a flimsy web of questions, you are given the questions of others to hold in the emptiness of your hands, songbird eggs that can still hatch if you keep them warm, butterflies opening and closing themselves in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure their scintillant fur, their dust. You are given the questions of others as if they were answers to all you ask. —A Gift by Denise Levertov.

All the parties you spent watching the room from a balcony where someone joined you to smoke then returned. And how it turns out no one had the childhood they wanted, and how they’d tell you this a little drunk, a little slant in less time than it took to finish a cigarette because sad things can’t be explained. Behind the glass and inside, all your friends buzzed. You could feel the shape of their voices. You could tell from their eyes they were in some other place. 1999 or 2008 or last June. Of course, it’s important to go to parties. To make life a dress or a drink or suede shoes someone wears in the rain. On the way home, in the car back, the night sky played its old tricks. The stars arranged themselves quietly. The person you thought of drove under them. Away from the party, (just like you) into the years. —The years, Alex Dimitrov

You're pulling the car over. Somebody's waiting. You're going to die in your best friend's arms. And you play along because it's funny, because it's written down, you've memorized it, it's all you know. I say the phrases that keep it all going, and everybody plays along. —Planet of Love - Richard Siken