[text ID: Let’s say you’ve swallowed a bad thing and now it’s got its hands inside you. This is the essence of love and failure. /end ID]
Mary L. Macomber, Night and her Daughter Sleep (1902) / Richard Siken, You Are Jeff (2008)
[text ID: Take the light inside you, like a blessing, like a knee in the chest, holding onto it and not letting go. Now let it go. /end ID]
[text ID: Two brothers are fighting by the side of the road. Two motorbikes have fallen over on the shoulder, leaking oil into the dirt, while the interlocking brothers grapple and swing. You see them through the backseat window as you and your parents drive past. You are twelve years old. You do not have a brother. You have never experienced anything this ferocious or intentional with another person. Your mother is pretending that she hasn’t seen anything. Your father is fiddling with the knobs of the radio. There is an empty space next to you in the backseat of the station wagon. Make it the shape of everything you need. Now say hello. /end ID]