lorde - hard feelings/loveless
“I typically arrive three years too late. I wish I had been able to sit in that white, aromatic kitchen and look you in the face but I was not ready. I was still on my way.”
— Mikko Harvey, from “Wind-Related Ripple in the Wheatfield,” Sixth Finch (Spring 2021)
“But sometimes, I swear I hear it, the wound closing like a rusted-over garage door, and I can still move my living limbs into the world without too much pain, can still marvel at how the dog runs straight toward the pickup trucks break-necking down the road, because she thinks she loves them, because she’s sure, without a doubt, that the loud roaring things will love her back”
— Ada Limón, from ‘The Leash’ (via soracities)
Ada Limón, from “The Great Blue Heron Of Dunbar Road”, Bright Dead Things
— Lorde, lyrics from “The Man with the Axe”, “Solar Power”
i am a feast for men who don’t know themselves. i come to the table serving my homegrown berries and aged wine. i cut into the meat and it steams as it splits open. after about an hour or so of filling their stomachs, they decide they’re not hungry anymore. i sit staring at the wasted meal that i made for them, and wonder if it was all too much. as they gather their coat and walk out the door, thanking me for the dinner, i’m left cleaning up the scraps, but still hungry for desert.
“I’ve polished this anger and now it’s a knife.”
— Cathy Linh Che, from “Go Forget Your Father,” published in Poetry
“I am that clumsy human, always loving, loving, loving. And loving. And never leaving.”
— Frida Kahlo, The Diary Of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait (via poetrea)
— Lorde, lyrics from “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen it All)”, “Solar Power”
Can we please destroy the idea that we are obligated to forgive someone if they apologize and have genuinely changed and/or are genuinely remorseful?
It’s okay to not be ready to forgive, and it’s okay if someone isn’t ever ready.
No one is owed your forgiveness, and forgiveness being necessary to healing is quite honestly… bullshit. If forgiveness helps you, then I’m happy for you but the same is not true for everyone. We all heal differently.
Please only forgive if you want to and not because you’ve been pressured to by the person apologizing or anyone else.