lily pham~

“There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.”
― William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

“Ruth looked for the water mark several times during the day. She knew it was there, would always be there, but she needed to confirm its presence. Like the keeper of the lighthouse and the prisoner, she regarded it as a mooring, a checkpoint, some stable visual object that assured her that the world was still there; that this was life and not a dream. That she was alive somewhere, inside, which she acknowledged to be true only because a thing she knew intimately was out there, outside herself.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“for when i look at you, even a moment, no
speaking is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin”
― Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

“You took advantage of every second that I did not love myself.”
― Laura Gentile, Daughterbody II: a self-reclamation through poetry