miriam

“We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“I'm becoming more a vessel of memories than a person it's a myth /
that love lives in the heart it lives in the throat we push it out /
when we speak when we gasp we take a little for ourselves /

in books love can be war-ending a soldier drops his sword /
to lie forking oysters into his enemy's mouth in life we hold love up to the light /
to marvel at its impotence”
― Kaveh Akbar, Calling a Wolf a Wolf

“I am not a slow learner
I am a quick forgetter
such erasing makes one voracious
if you teach me something beautiful
I will name it quickly before it floats away”
― Kaveh Akbar, Calling a Wolf a Wolf

“You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.”
― Richard Siken, Crush