Cyronis Vu

“Lately, I’ve become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelopes me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .
Things have come to that.
And now, each night I count the stars.
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.
Nobody sings anymore.
And then last night I tiptoed up
To my daughter’s room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into
Her own clasped hands.”
― Amiri Baraka, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

“You were a child the first time the Saint of War came to you.”
― Alix E. Harrow

“But my dreams are full of apples, and in the dark my body slowly transforms into fruit: tonsils shrinking to seeds and lungs to cores.”
― Jenny Hval, Paradise Rot

“Do not let what you gained this day be so easily lost.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles