Martina Litty

“And this is how we danced: with our mothers’
white dresses spilling from our feet, late August

turning our hands dark red. And this is how we loved:
a fifth of vodka and an afternoon in the attic, your fingers

sweeping though my hair—my hair a wildfire.
We covered our ears and your father’s tantrum turned

into heartbeats. When our lips touched the day closed
into a coffin. In the museum of the heart

there are two headless people building a burning house.
There was always the shotgun above the fireplace.

Always another hour to kill—only to beg some god
to give it back. If not the attic, the car. If not the car,

the dream. If not the boy, his clothes. If not alive,
put down the phone. Because the year is a distance

we’ve traveled in circles. Which is to say: this is how
we danced: alone in sleeping bodies. Which is to say:

This is how we loved: a knife on the tongue turning
into a tongue.”
― Ocean Vuong

“Time isn't made of anything. It is an abstraction. Just a meaning that we impose upon motion.”
― Anne Carson

“Boys like him didn't die; they got bronzed and installed outside public libraries.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“You’d wait in the orchard for hours
to watch a deer
break from the shadows.

You said it was like lifting a cello
out of its black case.”
― Eduardo C. Corral