Esper Ramsdal

“From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done. I made you look like a Christmas-tree fairy … I made you look like a Renaissance angel … I made you Adam and Eve … Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstein’s monster with long yellow hair.. As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you … I hid you in me. And when we were together … once the shaman had claimed the sun … I became God.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth

“You already know the story. You will die. Everyone you love will also die. You will lose them forever. You will be sad and angry. You will weep. You will bargain. You will make demands. You will beg. You will pray. It will make no difference. Nothing you can do will bring them back. You know this. Your knowing changes nothing. This poem will make you understand this unfathomable truth again and again, as if for the very first time.”
― Emily Wilson, The Iliad

“Victor stared at the wall as if it were still a window. “He doesn’t know how patient you are,” he said. “Doesn’t know you like I do.” Eli cleaned the blood from his hand. “No,” he said softly. “No one ever has.”
― V.E. Schwab, Vengeful

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired. You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”
― richard siken