Jessica Reynolds

“I wear my loneliness like a taffeta dress riding up my thigh,
and you cannot help but want me.
You think it's cruel
how I break your heart, to write a poem.
I think it's alchemy.”
― Warsan Shire, Our Men Do Not Belong To Us

“At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.”
― Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
― Jamie Anderson

“telling me
not all men
have
bad intentions

doesn't do
anything to
reassure
me.

after i
walk away from you,
nothing will have
changed.

i will still
be scared to
leave my house
after sundown.

i will still
find comfort
in keys resting
between fingers,

i will still
question
the intentoins of
every man i know

i will still
wonder
when i am
to become

a story
meant to warn
other people's
daughters,

& i will still
cry when i turn on
the television
to find

yet
another man
getting away
with

well--
what they
always seem to
get away with.

i am not
the one who
has to change
the way i think
or the way i act.
they are.”
― Amanda Lovelace, The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One