spill the blood on the floor

What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don’t want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don’t want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.

jeanette winterson, lighthousekeeping

nikki giovanni, from the collected poetry of nikki giovanni

keaton henson, from “don’t be long” 

maggie smith, from “what i carried”

laura gibson, from “empire builder”

Because I mistrust my head & hands, because I know salt tinctures my songs, I tried hard not to touch you even as I pulled you into my arms.

yusef komunyakaa, from the chameleon couch

margaret atwood, “the woman who could not live with her faulty heart”

I had two desires: desire / to be safe and desire to feel.

louise glück, from vita nova; “aubade” 

And what am I / but fear, but wanting.

camille rankine, from “aubade”

carmen maria machado, in the dream house

What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a cafe. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.

jeanette winterson, lighthousekeeping

neil hilborn, “a place where someone loves you”

Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined.

ocean vuong, on earth we’re briefly gorgeous

For as soon as one recognizes vulnerability, which is so different from weakness or the tragic, one experiences a sense of tenderness. Without tenderness, pleasure means nothing. You need only look at animals to see the truth of that. It is gentleness that distinguishes their playing from the actions they constantly take to ensure their survival.

john berger, a painter of our time: a novel

isabel allende, from the house of the spirits (tr. magda bogin)

jeanette winterson, why be happy when you could be normal?

keaton henson, from “used”

She is a profoundly gentle person… But this must be one reason for her terribly self-destructive history. She’s rarely known how to defend herself, except by withdrawal (tuning out, running away).

susan sontag, from as consciousness Is harnessed to flesh

The love-work that I have to do now is to believe that life will be all right for me. I don’t have to be alone. I don’t have to fight for everything. I don’t have to fight everything. I don’t have to run away. I can stay because this is love that is offered, a sane steady stable love.