Lidia Yuknavitch, From Reading The Waves: A Memoir Published In 2025

I think my whole life ive been day dreaming.

I remember the way the sun touched my face as I watched my father walk away over and over,

The smell of the air mixed with the flowers in fresh spring as my mother fell apart once again and left me to pick up every piece.

As a child I was always comforted by the “what ifs” that id pull from my imagination.

What if they love me enough tomorrow? What if they read me a story while I sleep?

I felt the wind flowing through my hair and the stars make just enough light to illuminate the path my father ran too with me lingering behind in the dark.

The sounds my fingers made caressing my mother’s cheek trying to make her pain a little less while mine was bleeding out the seams.

What if im the reason? What if I made them hate the life God has given them?

I have never known the truth of unconditional love because my love has always needed a reason, an act of service when I was only learning to tie my shoes.

I was raised in a house full of anger, distortion and begging,

They say you take parts of your childhood with you into adulthood but all I have seemed to hold onto is the rage. I’m unable to love and in return unlovable.

I am sewed together with tiny memories of all of the times I was closed behind my bedroom door asking God to show me himself.

I chase the broken because im only worthy if im fixing something and I am capsized in the grief of others.

I have a tendency to be abrasive and wear my father’s agony on my shoulders like a shield.

What if I disappeared and my heart stopped beating?

Guandalupe Nettel, from her novel titled "Stillborn," originally published in 2020

the lover’s almanac : part one.

— Sappho ; 51

Sylvia Plath, from The Unabridged Journals

— Franz Kafka, from a letter to Felice (via lunamonchtuna)

— V, from “excerpt from a book i will never write” (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

Mary Szybist, from  “In Tennessee I Found a Firefly”, Granted

Louise Glück, from “The Burning Heart”, Poems 1962 - 2012