a poem by sora h.

ONE. when she tells you she is a forest fire, or a clenched fist, or a bloody knife, do not correct her. when she tells you she is damaged goods, do not try to change her mind. instead, tell her you will love her anyway. she does not need fixing. she does not even need saving. she just needs someone to look at the wreckage and see something worth making a home in.

TWO. listen to the songs she tells you about. even the silly ones. even the ones she only mentions in passing. buy her the books you notice on her to be read list. to love anybody, you have to know them. to love a forest fire, you have to want to.

THREE. remember, you carry a piece of your childhood home everywhere you go. your crooked smiles reflect the off-center picture frames on your wall. the smell of coffee every day keeps you as warm and inviting as your kitchen. but she lived in a house always on fire, and a part of her will always carry the burning. remember to carry extra bandages with you. you cannot love a forest fire girl and come out unscathed.

FOUR. this is the hard part: she is going to hurt you. this is the harder part: you are going to hurt her too. there will be times you can't erase the image of her flinching at the sound of your raised voice out of your head. there will be days you won't forgive yourself for it. but let me tell you a secret: none of us who love leave this life without the scars to prove we loved. none of us come out unscathed.

FIVE. you are not the hero in this story. neither is she. truth is, you're both just trying your best. we are all just trying to be holy. you are not the hero in this story. do not congratulate yourself for loving a forest fire. do not call yourself savior. call yourself lover, and you might get to be both.

ellen bass, the thing is

my chemical romance, famous last words

mary oliver, for example

mary shelley, frankenstein

a dialogue between the unloved and the loving

neil hilborn // miranda july // @orpheuslament // aaron o’hanlon // georges bataille // natalie wee “least of all” // @fridayiminlovemp3 // maria petrovykh “love me. i am pitch black” // “the seven husbands of evelyn hugo” // sylvia plath “johnny panic & the bible of dreams” // mary oliver “wild geese” // sue zhao // virginia woolf from a letter to katherine mansfield // trista mateer

[ID: a collection of excerpts of text.

..saying goodbye. yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are.”

“finally, in a low whisper, he said, “i think i might be a terrible person.” for a split second i believed him - i thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. then i realized that we all think we might be terrible people. but we only reveal this before asking someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

screaming take me as I am or kill me / screaming peel my skin off like a blindfold / screaming love me despite the horror / screaming please, God, love me because of it.

“show me your thorns and i’ll show you hands ready to bleed.”

“i kneel into a dream where i / am good & loved. i am good. / i am loved. my hands have made / some good mistakes. they can always / make better ones.

 capitalized letters that look like they’ve been cut and pasted on top of overhead pictures of fields. it reads: “tell me every terrible thing you ever did / and let me love you anyway.”

love me. i am pitch black, / sinful, blind, confused. / but if not you, then who else / is going to love me?

“if you are intolerable, let me be the one to tolerate you,” i said, and then i kissed her and tasted the lemon juice on her lips.

“you have seen the rotten streak in me and you have come back, no matter how bad it was. you have always come back. can’t you see? you have taken me always as I am, no matter what.”

“i wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.” “like what?” “i don’t know,” she hesitated. “like you could love me.”

“i love you, and i am conscious of you all the time.”

in this space right here that we have made for each other, you can say anything and i will not abandon you. unwrap the worst things you have done. watch me hold them up to the light and not even flinch. 

— snow globes, tara fae