Bobbi Jo

“It is a mistake to believe we must know a thing to be influenced by it. It is a mistake to believe the thing must even be real.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Empire of Silence

“Augustine once said that if there are such things as the past and the future, they do not exist as such but are only the present in their own times. The past, he says, exists only in memory and the future only in expectation. Neither is real.”
― Christopher Ruocchio, Empire of Silence

“2001, NOKIA CELLPHONE
His first cellphone was slipped
into his hands on September 12th,
2001. The cover was the American Flag.
“It’s just... in case of emergency,”
his mother whispered to him.
As if the world had not ended,
had not evaporated already.
He still goes to school.
He hears myths on the bus about Hussein.
He donates his piggy bank to Fire Station 86.
In it is a 20-dollar bill and purple
pieces of toy soldiers.
He wonders if the soldiers’ hearts exploded.
He wants them back in the piggy bank.”
― Palmer Smith, The Butterfly Bruises

“You are the fire of my heart, and the beat of
my drum. I am yours under moonlight. Until the rhythm sings no more.”
― Saara El-Arifi, Faebound