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âTo exist in this body is war,â she whispered, her voice so soft it nearly escaped me, as if she recoiled from the weight of the words that had slipped past her lips.
âEvery day, I am dissected as if I am the anomaly in this world, not the systems they built upon the backs of those who came before,â she chuckled, as if this truth â this burden â had been her constant companion.
âLooking at her then, perhaps truly seeing her for the first time, the enormity of it struck me. Somewhere between then and now, lifeâs weariness had etched itself onto her face. Lines I had once interpreted as joy and laughter now seemed more like scars, healed over with a stubborn refusal to be erased, a silent declaration: âThis will not break me.â And for a fleeting moment, I had believed it. But now, beneath the willow, where sunlight once filtered through the leaves in a warm embrace, a sense of her depleted fight hung heavy in the air. The light itself felt different now, thin and frail, mirroring how all the blood she had shed seemed to have cost her more than if she had never bled at allâŚ.
After the Fire, We Remain, page 30 â P.N.G
May 8, 2025
Related Recs
I read it in first grade and it accelerated the development of a profound sense of consciousness and independent thinking and fortified my existing love for animals/nature/the environment. I was already an overly existential child and it helped me learn to focus on beauty and joy in the face of death and suffering!
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The leaves were falling from the great oak at the meadow's edge. They were falling from all the trees.
One branch of the oak reached high above the others and stretched far out over the meadow. Two leaves clung to its very tip.
"It isn't the way it used to be," said one leaf to the other.
"No," the other leaf answered. "So many of us have fallen off tonight we're almost the only ones left on our branch."
"You never know who's going to go next," said the first leaf. "Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes, and many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who's going to go next."
"The sun seldom shines now," sighed the second leaf, "and when it does it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again."
"Can it be true," said the first leaf, "can it really be true, that others come to take our places when we're gone and after them still others, and more and more?"
"It is really true," whispered the second leaf. "We can't even begin to imagine it, it's beyond our powers."
"It makes me very sad," added the first leaf.
They were silent a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, "Why must we fall? ..."
The second leaf asked, "What happens to us when we have fallen?"
"We sink down. ..."
"What is under us?"
The first leaf answered, "I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows."
The second leaf asked, "Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're down there?"
The first leaf answered, "Who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it."
They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, "Don't worry so much about it, you're trembling."
"That's nothing," the second leaf answered, "I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to."
"Let's not talk any more about such things," said the first leaf.
The other replied, "No, we'll let be. Butâwhat else shall we talk about?" She was silent, but went on after a little while. "Which of us will go first?"
"There's still plenty of time to worry about that," the other leaf assured her. "Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid things..."
"Now the nights are dreadful," the second leaf complained, "and there is no end to them."
"We shouldn't complain," said the first leaf gently. "We've outlived many, many others."
"Have I changed much?" asked the second leaf shyly but determinedly.
"Not in the least," the first leaf assured her. "You only think so because I've got to be so yellow and ugly. But it's different in your case."
"You're fooling me," the second leaf said.
"No, really," the first leaf exclaimed eagerly, "believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me."
"Thanks," whispered the second leaf, quite touched. "I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you're so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are."
"Hush," said the other leaf, and kept silent herself for she was too troubled to talk any more.
Then they were both silent. Hours passed.
A moist wind blew, cold and hostile, through the treetops.
"Ah, now," said the second leaf, "I..." Then her voice broke off. She was torn from her place and spun down.Â
Winter had come.
Sep 8, 2024
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i remember wondering what they must have been thinking. while the bombs were being dropped, while their high school crush was sent to fight a war he didn't want. i wondered what they spent their days doing. what their older coworkers were whispering about in break rooms. what the best cook in their friend group was thinking as they fed dinner parties with ritz pies and canned vegetable casseroles. i wondered how it felt to keep spinning when the world was falling apart, surely the citizens knew better, surely they spoke up, surely their bones were alight with rage and confidence and desperation! surely it felt cataclyismic. that's how it's always been taught. looking back, we see the patterns. looking forward, we just see another day.
these days, as my rights are being taken from me every morning, as the farmers are scared to farm and the reporters cannot report and the people are stirring unsteadily- these days i know all too well. i cut my strawberries in fours wondering if next week there will be any left. i listen to conversations in break rooms and elevators, making a tally of who's husband has a red hat and who talks about lowering taxes and whos eyes shift to the floor whenever someone says the word immigrant. i savor, save, and wonder. i worry, don't we all worry?
i hold my lover tight and blanket us in gratitude, praying it is enough that we never discover how lucky and rare this moment is.
when i was young i signed myself up for the revolution because it was exciting. then because it was necessary, and now because it is all there is. we expected songbirds and battle cries and passion, instead we carry casual, mundane grief. maybe there is no better future. maybe all there is is the hope of one.
so i no longer wonder. i know what it is to be one of the unlucky ones. i know the lack of glory in living through the next generations 'never again'. we are not revolutionaries. we are not martyrs. we are people just getting through the day. no one will write me a biography when i am gone, my diary will not be published. but my hands will be dirty and my soul will be light when they accuse me of the crime of being human. i lived, despite it all, during it all. isn't that what it's all about?
Jan 28, 2025
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there is something figuratively beautiful about the things we know and donât know, the sublime and mundane
and when you visit the beach, do you ever think about if the animals who live in the embrace of the depths remember the beauty of the ocean?
where the salt envelops every single one of us,Â
accepting us as kin
letting her wind tousle our raw, visceral edgesÂ
and pepper them with her sea-foamed kissesÂ
which tell me that itâs okay to pretend
and okay to tell the ocean all of myself
the ocean reaches out to me, hands cloaked in the sharp coolness of water and something else- something i donât understand
as I poke around in a tide pool, like a vendor at a bustling market, observing the wares that the ocean has to offer
and i turn around and ask her, do the barnacles see themselves? do anemones understand their own beauty, fragile and ephemeral?Â
i donât think they do.Â
but the ocean doesnât have any words for me, instead shutting my mouth with a shhhhÂ
as her sandy dress rustles down the shore, laced with white foam and gossamer trails of ripples
and wordlessly, tells me to lookÂ
and i do.Â
until the sun hurriedly retreats from the wispy radiance of the moon, enrobed in puffy clouds
and it's just the three of us.
the moon tugs at the oceanâs hand, dancing to their own secret rhythm,Â
letting me see them in their love.
personally, i think itâs beautiful \\ and i wish i had something like it
and the ocean laughs. nothing jeering or ridiculing, simply an acknowledgement that i understand.
everything around me falls,Â
like petals cast off from a chrysanthemum.
and then, we were wordlessÂ
like the ocean had never spoken in the first place.Â
i want to descend into the depths of the ocean one day,
to be hugged once more and never again.
not because i am tired of being alive,
but frankly within me exists too much zeal to live.
uncontrollable surges of wow i am alive in flesh, blood through my veins, and thoughts in my head
become more addictive than any form of fentanyl, cocaine, heroinÂ
and better than any gateway into a better lifeÂ
or a better existence, transcending normality
and the moment itâs just me in my head, without the viscous energy of being alive
suddenly drains me like a leaking bucket,
decrepit and dry.
i want to burn like a torch, setting my world alight into embers,
into flames,Â
into an inferno.Â
Sunrise:: being alight || with a halo of only thoughts and dreams || and the divinity of something new
May 2, 2025
