by Destiny O. Birdsong your therapist wants to know where in your body you most feel your anxiety. you tell her in the bones behind your face. they have their own music, like ptolemy’s universe, and chirp like shuriken dancing in the road. your therapist says you hurt because there are things you’ve never been…

by Mary Ruefle You grow old.You love everybody.You forgive everyone.You think: we are all leavesdragged along by a wheel.Then comes a splendid spottedyellow one—ah, distinction! And in that momentyou are dragged under.

by KB Brookins In the beginning, heaven begat earth & earthbegat Sunday. For this one, I’m sitting in a desk chaircrafted by hands, all somewhere unawarethat they’re now touching bare skin. Thisis all the proof I needed, but I’m feeling generouswith language, so I’ll try to make this quick: in the dreams of my dearest enemies,…

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuckin your heel, the wetness of a finished lollipop stick,the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse—then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance,bit, and bite. Wait. I have made them up—all of them—and when I say I am married,…

by Adrian Sobol The Moon demands to be takenseriously. Me too. So I write a letter,address it, lick the envelope shut. Dear Moon, come back, we have so muchin common. Let’s hang out sometime.I haven’t worn my floral dress since that summer in the commune,salting my body with sageto cleanse the houses inside me. The…

by Ada Limón Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflowerand snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecyand the stoic farmer and faith and our father and ’tisof thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and godnot forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,enough of the will to go on…

by Tove Ditlevsen I love you because your spirit flickerslike a candle left by a window.I love you because when I think you’re mine,the flame blows out, and it isn’t so.I love you because you don’t carry onabout wedding bells and vows and things,a love like ours, so fleeting and precious,should not be bound by…

by Adrienne Rich Either you willgo through this dooror you will not go through. If you go throughthere is always the riskof remembering your name. Things look at you doublyand you must look backand let them happen. If you do not go throughit is possibleto live worthily to maintain your attitudesto hold your positionto die…

by ire’ne lara silva and singing in the night singing in the daysof want and singing in the days of plentysinging alone and singing with ghostssinging old songs and singing new songs wewill remember songs we haven’t heard yetsongs that haven’t been dreamt yet songs noone has found the words for songs sung onthe road…

by Vijay Seshadri Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life.The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.If I wrote that story now—radioactive to the end of time—people, I swear, your eyes would fall out, you couldn’t peelthe gloves fast enoughfrom your hands scorched by…