high five!
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“Modern Declaration” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never
    having wavered
In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the
    rich or in the presence of clergymen· having denied these
    loves;
Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having
    grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of these
    loves;
Never when anxious to land a job having diminished them by
    a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink
Jeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers
    of their alert enemies; declare
That I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied
    interests wins the war;
Shall love you always.
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Small Kindnesses
by Danusha Lameris
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
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Laura Brown-Lavoie performs Titanic at the Women of the World Poetry Slam 2013.
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we’re replacing our cabinet knobs
because we can’t change the world, but we can
change our hardware.
Kelli Russell Agodon’s “Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror”
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Natalie Wee, “Cartilage”
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Good Bones
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
BY MAGGIE SMITH
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VI. Wisdom: The Voice of God
Ninety percent of what’s wrong with you
could be cured with a hot bath,
says God through the manhole covers,
but you want magic, to win
the lottery you never bought a ticket for.
(Tenderly, the monks chant,
embrace the suffering.) The voice never
panders, offers no five-year plan,
no long-term solution, no edicts from a cloudy
white beard hooked over ears.
It is small and fond and local. Don’t look for
your initials in the geese honking
overhead or to see through the glass even
darkly. It says the most obvious shit,
i.e. Put down that gun, you need a sandwich.
Mary Karr
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It’s not about adding diversity for the sake of diversity, it’s about subtracting homogeneity for the sake of realism.
Mary Robinette Kowal (via offscreen dispatch)
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5. Get Married. Be in a Long Term Relationship.
People say they want to end up with someone, they say they want to get married someday, and then what do they do? Everything but what makes that possible. Pick a person and be in a relationship already.
Ryan Holiday
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