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Monologue for an Onion by Suji Kwock Kim

existentialexits:

I don’t mean to make you cry.
I mean nothing, but this has not kept you
From peeling away my body, layer by layer,

The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills
With husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit.
Poor deluded human: you seek my heart.

Hunt all you want. Beneath each skin of mine
Lies another skin: I am pure onion-pure union
Of outside and in, surface and secret core.

Look at you, chopping and weeping. Idiot.
Is this the way you go through life, your mind
A stopless knife, driven by your fantasy of truth,

Of lasting union-slashing away skin after skin
From things, ruin and tears your only signs
Of progress? Enough is enough.

You must not grieve that the world is glimpsed
Through veils. How else can it be seen?
How will you rip away the veil of the eye, the veil

That you are, you who want to grasp the heart
Of things, hungry to know where meaning
Lies. Taste what you hold in your hands: onion-juice,

Yellow peels, my stinging shreds. You are the one
In pieces. Whatever you meant to love, in meaning to
You changed yourseld: you are not who you are

Your soul cut moment to moment by a blade
Of fresh desire, the ground sown with abandoned skins.
And at your inmost circle, what? A core that is

Not one. Poor fool, you are divided at the heart,
Lost in its maze of chambers, blood, and love,
A heart that will one day beat you to death.

"You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I."

e.e. cummings (via hannesqs)

The Appalachian Book of the Dead by Charles Wright

Sunday, September Sunday … Outdoors,
Like an early page from The Appalachian Book of the Dead,
Sunlight lavishes brilliance on every surface,
Doves settle, surreptitious angels, on tree limb and box branch,
A crow calls, deep in its own darkness,
Something like water ticks on
Just there, beyond the horizon, just there, steady clock …
Go in fear of abstractions …

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-Walt Whitman

-Walt Whitman

(Source: ivorysprite)

tr0n-c4t:

To sit,
to stay,
to listen,
to succeed,
to obey
is to bring about
feelings
of guilt
for sitting in front
of life,
waving as it passes.

To run,
to sing,
to drink,
to dance,
to fuck
is to bring about
feelings
of guilt
for not valuing my life
enough
to be careful with it. 

paperlesswords:

Here Am I by Anis Mojgani (@Mojgani)

“Because the only thing that we can hear is our hearts
And the only ones listening are the streets
That the blood that breathes through the letters we leave
And we dream to rise ourselves up out of these burning buildings
But instead we get buried somewhere beneath…” 

(Source: onseeingandnoticing)

Traveling Through the Dark
William Stafford 

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

next to of course god america i

“next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn’s early my
country ‘tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

-e.e. cummings

(Source: angulaar)

She Put on Her Lipstick in the Dark
Stuart Dischell 

I really did meet a blind girl in Paris once. 
It was in the garden of a museum, 
Where I saw her touching the statues. 
She had brown hair and an aquamarine scarf.

It was in the garden of the museum. 
I told her I was a thief disguised as a guard. 
She had brown hair and an aquamarine scarf. 
She told me she was a student from Grenoble.

I told her I was not a thief disguised as a guard. 
We had coffee at the little commissary. 
She said she had time till her train to Grenoble. 
We talked about our supreme belief in art.

We had coffee at the little commissary, 
Then sat on a bench near the foundry. 
We talked about our supreme belief in art. 
She leaned her head upon my chest.

We kissed on a bench near the foundry. 
I closed my eyes when no one was watching. 
She leaned her head upon my chest. 
The museum was closing. It was time to part.%3