XV

“It is three at night. I have something to say. You are so valuable. You shine out. You are a magic star. You are a body of blood made beautiful. How I admire, sit back and adore you. How thirsty I am for that. How you feed me.”

— Anne Sexton, a letter to Lois Ames (January 11th, 1969)

“when you meet that person. a person. one of your soulmates. let the connection. relationship be what it is. it may be five mins. five hours. five days. five months. five years. a lifetime. let it manifest itself, the way it is meant to. it has an organic destiny. this way if it stays or if it leaves, you will be softer from having been loved this authentically. souls come into, return, open, and sweep through your life for a myriad of reasons, let them be who and what they are meant.”

“i am mine.
before i am ever anyone else's.”

“i knew you
before
i met you.
i’ve known you my whole life.”

Poems by Nayyirah Waheed

XIV

“You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”.”

— Erin McKean, You Don’t Have to Be Pretty

XIII

falling in love with a ghost is a funny thing
when you wake up one morning and realize
the person you are living for
does not exist
the sting is not as bad as expected
at first there are
tears
screams
shock, yes
but then… the peaceful realization of
what you already knew
his words are made up
his fingers never touched you
he is a coveted illusion
for being so foolish, self-hatred will take over
but then… the remembrance that
ghosts are the best at playing tricks on the living