reverie v. reality

• hello polly: help, I’m the loneliest person in the world! by heather havrilesky

The cage is open. You can walk out anytime you want. Why are you still in there?

• how to avoid half-heartedness by bookbear express

What I write is all mine, it’s a living thing, it’s an extension of me that wanders out into the world.

• death comes to me again, a girl by dorianne laux

There are wind chimes and the smell of lemons, some days it rains, but more often the air is dry and sweet.

• dogfish by mary oliver

Mostly, I want to be kind.

• a sad child by margaret atwood

none of us is;
or else we all are.

• the bridge by gabrielle bates

If I describe something, anything, long enough,
language will lead me back to wanting it.

• after my brother’s death, i reflect on the iliad by elisa gonzalez

But it’s not like that, is it? Not at all. When in this world, similes carry us nowhere.

• the love song of j. alfred prufrock by t.s. eliot

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

• coping by alison thumel

The way I can write the shape of the
thing but not the thing itself.

• iii. movement of bodies by henry reed

Are you ready? Is everyone paying attention?
Very well then. Here are two hills.

• apology with interruptions by rita dove

I forgot. That’s how
everything goes now,
all of the time.

• listography — website where you make lists and follow other people's lists, which is like heaven to me

• bookshop dot org — buy books online & have some of the proceeds go back to local bookstores!

• thriftbooks dot com - new and used books

• pen america’s banned book index - index for 2023 - 2024