I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:
Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,
Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,
Select the prince from a row of identical masks,
Tiptoe up to a dragon where it basks
And snatch its bone; count dust specks, mote by mote,
Or learn the phone directory by rote.
Always it’s impossible what someone asks—

You have to fight magic with magic. You have to believe
That you have something impossible up your sleeve,
The language of snakes, perhaps, an invisible cloak,
An army of ants at your beck, or a lethal joke,
The will to do whatever must be done:
Marry a monster. Hand over your firstborn son.

My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there—and then bolt across the chasm between you, before your bridge collapses.

Wah! 1) I am dying for The Vampire Diaries’ new season to begin again*. 2) Not that anyone will believe me, but I swear I’m still working on that novel. *I love Taylor Swift’s “Red.”

figmentdotcom:

Liked The Vampire Diaries? Read The Book of Thirst on Figment for free! (X)

Even now, I cannot lose the memory of scent.
It leads me to pomegranates, halved, lying on a table,
the globes of puckered skin are red as my own lips.
This is the season of abduction — fruit pulled
from branches and vines. The dense perfumes
of fresh jams and pies slice the slow dawn.
The maples and oaks turn thin and gray
with their testimony of bruised and bloodied leaves.
Drawn to the sanguine, tart sweet, ripe aroma,
hundreds of lusting eyes, I touch the dark
texture and remember my love’s rough hands,
the frantic tear and pull of desire.
I hand my money to the farm boy, grab
the pomegranate —no, I don’t need a bag—
and rush away to home. Pulling it apart,
the ruby juice bleeding out on my fingers and dress,
I close my lips around the flesh
and dream of the man my husband used to be.

tell me how much longer i need to wait
for the answer i already know, to the question neither of us
want to ask.

Michel Blazy fills a monastery with cascades of foam.

A Japanese legend says that if you can’t sleep at night it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.

"The Pocket Watch Prince" ›

You in the bear-skin, I see you. I see you tremble
to the quick of your bones
from a lick of honey on your sweet-briar tongue.

(Art credit: Nora Aoyagi, The Bear Who Was a Prince)

The bone graveyard of giants.

(Source: Lava fields by Niall Connaughton)

Excerpt from a short story I’m working on:

When the Queen was pregnant with her first child, she ate entire white roses, stems and all. Occasionally she would nibble red rose petals, but she fed mostly on the white ones. And apples, white and succulent, fleshy. When her daughter was born, she had new milk skin and little blushes cresting her soft cheeks. But then there was that disturbing X-ray, which no one expected.

foreverdiary:

Outdoor school for asthmatics

(via dreamycloud)