Agnes

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Despite what you’ve read, your sadness is not beautiful. No one will see you in the bookstore, curled up with your Bukowski, and want to save you.
Stop waiting for a salvation that will not come from the grey-eyed boy looking for an annotated copy of Shakespeare,
for an end to your sadness in Keats.
He coughed up his lungs at 25, and flowery words cannot conceal a life barely lived.
Your life is fragile, just beginning, teetering on the violent edge of the world.
Your sadness will bury you alive, and you are the only one who can shovel your way out with hardened hands and ragged fingernails, bleeding your despair into the unforgiving earth.
Darling, you see, no heroes are coming for you. Grab your sword, and don your own armor.”
― Emily Palermo

“We, the stumbling prophets
screaming ourselves raw,
wondering if Atlas will ever take
the world from our shoulders.
We, the impossible.
We, the unyielding.
We, the unrelenting heretics
burning alive for truths
the old world will never
be ready to hear.
We, the nuclear.
We, the radioactive.

We, the unwilling angels
choking on the innocence
shoved down our throats,
ripping these unforgiving
linens to shreds.
We, the celestial.
We, the hungry.

We, the courageous damned
kissing revolution in the moonlight,
crushing fate between our teeth.
We, the unholy.
We, the light.”
― Emily Palermo

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde