Writing on my Walls

musings on regret

   — Ocean Vuong, Reasons for Staying

 — Vladimir Nabokov, from Letters to Véra

don't cry. the price is right. you can apply the eyeliner with a smooth stroke. you can whiten your teeth. you can commit insanity quietly, privately, like pressing prayer out through your teeth.

ii. i forgot to go to therapy yesterday, because the reason i go to therapy is also the same reason i forget things.

iii. they won't let you talk about it, but the truth is that the illness wants to outlive you. and there is something beautiful about anxiety; about the press of my tongue to the roof of my mouth. that immediate, single-toned insanity. where would i be without panic? she is protecting me, goddamn it.

iv. i'm going to die alone. i'm going to die with my hand over my eyes.

v. they made this world for lovers, didn't they. the exit has a single red eye over it. they won't let you talk about it, but being sick is addictive. it needs to be, or none of us would be sick, would we? it makes the effort of surviving horrifying. why would i do that? why would i get better and force myself through the endless hurt and rehurting - when i could just waste? when i could turn rotten? it's easier, this way. succumb to the hike of her skirt, trembling up a pale leg. the soft, mesh sack over an open mouth.

Emma Rebholz, from “No Good Bloodsuckers,” published in The Misanthropy

Blythe Baird

Dorothea Lasky, Rome

Richard Siken, Crush

Eric LaRocca, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Yves olade, Dark When It Gets Dark