Amy Louisa

“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

“They’ve kept the truth
about Persephone a secret,
burying it deep below
Hercules’s murdered wife
and all of Zeus’s affairs.
It’s dangerous, you see,
a spark threatening to
ignite a long dead flame.

Power.

She loved her power,
the Queen of the Dead,
to forever reign
in the fires of hell.
She wore her crown
like a beacon;
a beautiful queen,
plotting against her king.
They never wanted you
to know the hunger of Persephone,
how she starved for something
other than pomegranates.

Control.

The primal thirst
that burns all women’s throats,
denied by eons of men.
Listen closely to the voice from hell, sweetheart.
“You are a queen;
don’t wait for a king.”
― Emily Palermo

“So, kid, you’ve got to live,
and not just that stoic existence you’ve
been stomping trough all this time.
You’ve got to be kind,
you’ve got to fall in love,
fall out of love,
no matter how much it hurts
because my god,
it’s worth it.
Don’t let the world turn you to stone;
you’ve got to feel.
And sometimes,
your heart will threaten
to march right out of your chest
because you’re so fucking full of it all-
of the people,
the places,
the endless days,
the eternal nights-
and kid, that’s fine.
Be brave.
Courage isn’t measured by the
number of people you’ve turned away
or by the counts of the nights you’ve
spent alone because you refuse to
give someone the chance to love you.
Being alone is not poetic;
you’ve got to let them in.
Let them peel back your skin
and waltz into your bloodstream
and love them,
love them,
love them.

And finally, kid,
your life has already begun.
Stop waiting.
Chaos is already underway.”
― Emily Palermo

“I still search for you in crowds,
in empty fields and soaring clouds.
In city lights and passing cars,
on winding roads and wishing stars.”
― Lang Leav, Lullabies