san

“GRIEF FEELS LIKE THIS:
an okay day and a good day and an okay day
then a bad.
Bad that follow and empties you.
Bad like a sinkhole.

It feels like
an unrelenting urge to lay your head down on the table, wherever you are, whomever you are with.

It feels like
a night of vivid dreams, and when you wake, all day you hold one dream close
because in it
everything was back to how it once was.

It feels like
you've fallen overboard.
You are swimming to get back, but the boat moves steadily away. You can see the lights; you can hear the laughter and music on the decks.
You try to follow. The boat moves away.

It feels like
missing.
You miss her. You miss him. You miss belonging. You miss the bench by the fence. You miss the walk from the lockers. You miss the talks by the pool, in the hammock, at night, on the phone, the screen winking blue light. You miss the stories on the bed, by the window, beside the desk, on the dunes. You miss his voice. You miss her smile.
You miss and miss and miss and miss.
And all you want to do is walk into a forest and cover yourself with leaves.”
― Helena Fox

“art is the way we imprint ourselves onto the world so there is no way to erase us.”
― Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling

“They say observation affects reality, that it can pin an electron into place. Until then, the electron is just a possibility, just an idea. Until it’s seen, it might as well not exist.”
― Helena Fox, How It Feels to Float

“Mama used to tell me that blood is everything, but I think we’re all out here unlearning that sentiment, scraping our knees and asking strangers to patch us back up.”
― Leila Mottley, Nightcrawling