Andi Gunther

“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world.

But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise. 'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.'

All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“53. 'We mainly suppose the experiential quality to be an intrinsic quality of the physical object'-this is the so-called systematic illusion of color. Perhaps it is also that of love. But I am not willing to go there-not just yet. I believed in you.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

“Afterward (or, The Bridge)

Because desire always exceeds
its object. Because the energy you gave me

feels big enough to birth wings. Because
I want you to push into the wetness

and I know it. Because of the salt
and the wind. Because everything

that is supposed to happen
will happen, is happening, or

has already happened. Because
ambivalence is more beautiful

than justice. Because my heart is
shooting ahead, and I have no choice

but to follow it. Because I want you
to be happy, with or without me.

Because of the birds fleeing the storm.
Because the harbor is permeable

and shining. Because it felt like
that last night of my life

but it wasn't. Because a web of cables
is there to catch me if I blow

sideways, and always will be. Because
I walked across the bridge and was free.”
― Maggie Nelson, Something Bright, Then Holes

“By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display - the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time.
Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.”
― Hélène Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa