In the space between yes and no, there’s a lifetime. It’s the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it’s the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; its the legroom for the lies you’ll tell yourself in the future. ― Jodi Picoult, Change… Continue reading Jodi Picoult
This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, no one. You will have changed before the poem will. Even while you sit there, unmovable, You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter. The poem will go on without you. It has… Continue reading Donald Justice
My, how foolish I am! You know what I’ve always thought? I’ve always thought a body would have to be sick and dying before they saw the Lord. And I imagined that when He came it would be like looking at the Baptist window: pretty as colored glass with the sun pouring through, such a… Continue reading Truman Capote
I always thought death would be like traveling in a car, moving through the desert, the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon, that your life would settle like the end of a day and you would think of everyone you ever met, that you would be the invisible passenger, quiet in the… Continue reading Carl Adamshick
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes First, her tippet made of tulle, easily lifted off her shoulders and laid on the back of a wooden chair. And her bonnet, the bow undone with a light forward pull. Then the long white dress, a more complicated matter with mother-of-pearl buttons down the back, so tiny and numerous… Continue reading Billy Collins
I’m lonely. And I’m lonely in some horribly deep way and for a flash of an instant, I can see just how lonely, and how deep this feeling runs. And it scares the shit out of me to be this lonely because it seems catastrophic. ― Augusten Burroughs, Dry. (St. Martin’s Press June 2003)
III. It’s not you. It’s what I’ll do to you. And I can see it even now, even clutching at the air around your body, trying to bring you closer. Once you get deep enough so that water swallows light, there are fish who dangle iridescent lures before their toothed mouths. Now listen closely, darling.… Continue reading Ali Shapiro
