often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman’s love,
no wealth
can
match it.

nothing can save
you
except
writing.

it keeps the walls
from
falling.
the hordes from
closing
in.

it blasts the
darkness.

writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.

writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.

and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.

it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.

that’s
what it
is.

- Writing, Charles Bukowski

I want to stay up late and read Charles Bukowski. I want to lay with my head on someone’s chest with their chin on my forehead, warmly cuddled in sleep. I want to wake up and make egg white omelets and hazelnut coffee. I want to go antiquing and admire all the beautiful pieces that I could never find a real purpose for. I want to be so carelessly happy and unapologetically loved.

clavicola:

There’s another skin inside my skin
that gathers to your touch, a lake to the light;
that looses its memory, its lost language
into your tongue,
erasing me into newness.

…

Like the light of anything that grows
from this newly-turned earth,
every tip of me gathers under your touch,
wind wrapping my dress around our legs,
your shirt twisting to flowers in my fists.

      — From “Flowers,” by Anne Michaels