#Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

[havingapoemwithyou]

not as smart as i think i am by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

[tankbredgrunt]

Not Doing Something Wrong Isn't the Same as Doing Something Right - Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

[boricuacherry-blog]

July, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

[poem-today]

A poem by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

July

The figs we ate wrapped in bacon. The gelato we consumed greedily: coconut milk, clove, fresh pear. How we’d dump hot espresso on it just to watch it melt, licking our spoons clean. The potatoes fried in duck fat, the salt we’d suck off our fingers, the eggs we’d watch get beaten ’til they were a dizzying bright yellow, how their edges crisped in the pan. The pink salt blossom of prosciutto we pulled apart with our hands, melted on our eager tongues. The green herbs with goat cheese, the aged brie paired with a small pot of strawberry jam, the final sour cherry we kept politely pushing onto each other’s plate, saying, No, you. But it’s so good. No, it’s yours. How I finally put an end to it, plucked it from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth. How good it tasted: so sweet and so tart. How good it felt: to want something and pretend you don’t, and to get it anyway.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

More poems by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz are available through her website.

[6peaches]

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz - July

The figs we ate wrapped in bacon. The gelato we consumed greedily: coconut milk, clove, fresh pear. How we’d dump hot espresso on it just to watch it melt, licking our spoons clean. The potatoes fried in duck fat, the salt we’d suck off our fingers, the eggs we’d watch get beaten ’til they were a dizzying bright yellow, how their edges crisped in the pan. The pink salt blossom of prosciutto we pulled apart with our hands, melted on our eager tongues. The green herbs with goat cheese, the aged brie paired with a small pot of strawberry jam, the final sour cherry we kept politely pushing onto each other’s plate, saying, No, you. But it’s so good. No, it’s yours. How I finally put an end to it, plucked it from the plate, and stuck it in my mouth. How good it tasted: so sweet and so tart. How good it felt: to want something and pretend you don’t, and to get it anyway.

- July by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

[miantonella]

You probably don’t remember this discussion. Nor should you have, really, since it is no the role of the crush to remember. The crush simply exists. It is the role of the crushed to record. 

Excerpt From: "Dear Future Boyfriend" by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz. Scribd.

This material may be protected by copyright.

Read this book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/257695077

[libraincarnate]

astrology notes: 18 (love quotes) 🦇‧₊⁺⭒

quick note: i'm absolutely not an astrologer and this post is just for fun. i understand that some of these quotes or excepts may not be about love when you consider the full context of the poem or work of literature, but this is how i am intepreting and applying them without context. lastly, keep in mind that i'm not reading your birth chart and i know nothing about you. these are just quotes that remind me of the signs so you may or may not be able to relate to them. enjoy!

𓆩♡𓆪 aries:

“If we meet each other in Hell, it’s not Hell.”

— Geoffrey Hill, Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952-2012

𓆩♡𓆪 taurus:

“The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had become a physical necessity...” 

           — George Orwell, 1984 ↟♡↟

𓆩♡𓆪 gemini:

“The next day I write him one of the most human notes he has ever received: no intellect, just words about his voice, his laughter, his hands.”

— Anaïs Nin, from Henry and June: From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932

𓆩♡𓆪 cancer: 

“…Your chest is becoming the field I want to be buried in.” 

— Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, from The Year of No Mistakes: “Atlas”

𓆩♡𓆪 leo: 

“Attention is the beginning of devotion."  

           ― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays 🦇

𓆩♡𓆪 virgo: 

Pylades: I’ll take care of you.

Orestes: It’s rotten work. 

Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.

― Orestes by Euripides from An Oresteia, translated by Anne Carson

𓆩♡𓆪 libra:

“If there is life after the earth-life, will you come with me? Even then? Since were bound to be something, why not together.”

           ― Mary Oliver, from “West Wind” ↟♡↟

𓆩♡𓆪 scorpio:

“They had made love in every possible way, or so they believed, and they theorized about new ways but came up only with death.”

― Roberto Bolaño, from '2666', translated by Natasha Wimmer

𓆩♡𓆪 sagittarius:

"All roads lead to you even those I took to forget you."

           ― Mahmoud Darwish 🦇

𓆩♡𓆪 capricorn:

“She turned to me and said, ‘hold me’. So I dropped the world I had been holding and picked her up with both hands.”

           ― Zachry K Douglas ↟♡↟

𓆩♡𓆪 aquarius:

“I feel the distance between myself and others. I guard that distance … But when you move away from me, even just the least bit, a blackness descends upon me, I feel engulfed.”

— Henry Miller, "A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller 1932-1953"

𓆩♡𓆪 pisces:

“I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.”

           — Edwin Morgan, When You Go 🦇

this was just something cute and extra since I haven’t posted anything in a while. if you read this until the end i hope you enjoyed it & thank you so much for reading. ♥︎♥︎♥︎, those hearts are for you.

[sincerelymarner]

ISN’T EVERY POEM AN UNFINISHED LOVE POEM?

from how to love the empty air, cristin o'keefe aptowicz

[taiturner]

[...] In my defense, how when we just sat listening to each other breathe, he said, “This is enough.”  —  (Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz)

[girlfictions]

— Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, from “How to Love the Empty Air”

[havingapoemwithyou]

not doing something wrong isn’t the same as doing something right by cristin o'keefe aptowicz

[april-is]

April 3, 2024: Positivity, D.A. Powell

Positivity D.A. Powell

“Anyway, it isn’t forever,” Chris said, “eventually you’re dead.” And we laughed

Besides, everything is better now. Not us but implants, blenders, children, heart attacks. There’s never been a better time to be alive than when you are. If you are. Black-throated blue warbler says chewchewchewchewchewww drawing the last chew out like a sucking drainpipe to say he has mated and is satisfied. Say what you will about that. His joy is uncontainable

and yet it has a form, a measure, to make it clear he’s not upset or feeling anxious. And if he’s bragging, well, it’s no shame to brag that you’re happy.

Honeybees cavorting on the goldenrod are working toward a common goal they’ll never see achieved. They lay down the walls of their cathedral of honeycomb and will not cope the spire, busy in the present task, trusting that the work continues. I’d like to write a children’s book called everybody dies. Upbeat, of course, and pragmatic. You only got so many days. Don’t think about death; when you’re ready, death will think about you. Go out tonight with your friends, like Chris, who went out big or not at all. Have a ball. Plan ahead.

--

Hear the poet read this aloud.

also by D.A. Powell (shared in year 1 of this project!): [this is what you love: more people. you remember]

More like this:

Overjoyed, Ada Limón

you can’t be a star in the sky without holy fire, Frank X. Gaspar

Today in:

2023: Picture This, Jiordan Castle 2022: Alba, Madeleine Cravens 2021: July, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz 2020: Poem Beginning With A Retweet, Maggie Smith 2019: Waiting for Happiness, Nomi Stone 2018: United, Naomi Shihab Nye 2017: If You Are Over Staying Woke, Morgan Parker 2016: High School Senior, Sharon Olds 2015: Dog in Bed, Joyce Sidman 2014: Persephone Writes to Her Mother, Tara Mae Mulroy 2013: Hook, James Wright 2012: How to Build an Owl, Kathleen Lynch 2011: Expecting, Kevin Young 2010: The Choir, Luke Kennard 2009: I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone, Stephen Dunn 2008: Visible World, Richard Siken 2007: Anywhere Else, Maggie Dietz 2006: After Work, Richard Jones 2005: The Sheep-Child, James Dickey

[angelosearch]

Who are your favorite poets? :)

AHHHHHH omg I haven't been able to talk about poetry in SO long.

First, the classics. I am not huge on William Shakespeare's plays, but I do like his poetry. Oscar Wilde is just an icon. I like a lot of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Emily Dickinson. I HAVE to mention Edgar Allen Poe because he's from my state but honestly, I like his overall ideas over his execution most of the time. Joyce Kilmer wrote one of my favorite poems of all time, "Trees."

Moving closer to the present day, there's Allen Ginsberg. Howl changed how I understood poetry as a whole. Shel Silverstein taught me what poetry was in the first place. I also enjoy Edward Albee and Joyce Carol Oates.

Getting into poets who are writing right now, Maggie Nelson wrote this collection of poems called Bluets that I adore. I also got to take a seminar with her through my college. Finally, I saw Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz give a reading and she was just... mezmorizing. Honestly, poetry is meant to be performed, which is why I haven't read much since college. But if someone invites me to a poetry reading, I am so there.

My favorite collection of poems is Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs. It is just what it sounds like and yes it made me sob uncontrollably by the end.

Curious to know if you or any of my other mutuals have thoughts about poetry!

[odditycollector]

My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead

ARE YOU DEAD? is the subject line of her email. The text outlines the numerous ways she thinks I could have died: slain by an axe-murderer, lifeless on the side of a highway, choked to death by smoke since I'm a city girl and likely didn't realize you needed to open the chimney flue before making a fire (and, if I do happen to be alive, here's a link to a YouTube video on fireplace safety that I should watch). Mom muses about the point of writing this email. If I am already dead, which is what she suspects, I wouldn't be able to read it. And if I'm alive, what kind of daughter am I not to write her own mother to let her know that I've arrived at my fancy residency, safe and sound, and then to immediately send pictures of everything, like I promised her! If this was a crime show, she posits, the detective might accuse her of sending this email as a cover up for murder. How could she be the murderer, if she wrote an email to her daughter asking if she was murdered? her defense lawyers would argue at the trial. In fact, now that she thinks of it, this email is the perfect alibi for murdering me. And that is something I should definitely keep in mind, if I don't write her back as soon as I have a free goddamn second to spare.

- Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, "My Mother Wants to Know if I'm Dead", how to love the empty air

[wyrdsistergoldenhair]

Books Read in 2023

Road of Bones by Christopher Golden (2022)

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates (1995)

Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones (2020)

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1962)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1978)

Dr. Mütter's Marvel's: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz (2014)

Devil House: A Novel by John Darnielle (2022)

The Shadows by Alex North (2020)

Lucky Girl: How I Became A Horror Writer: A Krampus Story by M. Rickert (2022)

The Hunger by Alma Katsu (2018)

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler (1995)

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (2016)

The Troop by Nick Cutter (2014)

The Deep by Nick Cutter (2015)

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (2022)*

Audition by Ryū Murakami (2010)

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway (1937)

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes by Suzanne Collins (2020)

The Hunger Games #1: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008)*

The Hunger Games #2: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (2009)*

The Hunger Games #3: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (2010)*

The Mist by Stephen King (1980)*

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (2017)

Sour Candy by Kealan Patrick Burke (2015)

The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764)

I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream: Stories by Harlan Ellison (1967)

Sphere: A Novel by Michael Crichton (1987)

Heart, Haunt, Havoc by Freydís Moon (2023)

Nimona by N.D. Stevenson (2015)

All the Blood We Share by Camilla Bruce (2022)

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman*

Skeleton Crew by Stephen King (1985)

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (1997)*

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (2002)*

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang (2022)

Kill Creek by Scott Thomas (2017)

Simon Snow #1: Carry On by Rainbow Rowell (2015)*

Simon Snow #2: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell (2019)*

Simon Snow #3: Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell (2021)*

In Deeper Waters by F.T. Lukens (2021)

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (2021)*

The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell (1962)

The Victorians: A Very Short Introduction by Martin Hewitt (2023)

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle (2023)

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (2010)

Magic: An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane edited by Jonathan Oliver (2012)

[cakegege]

Things That Happen During Pet-Sitting I Remind Myself Are Not Metaphors For My Heart

The dog refuses to eat. I keep filling her bowl anyway: new kibble on top of old, hoping that it will suddenly becoming tempting.

When I write, the cat watches me from a chair. When I look at him, he purrs loudly, leans forward so that I might touch him. I don’t.

Now the dog refuses to come out of her cage, no matter what I say, no matter how wide I open the door. She knows that I am not her master.

On the couch, the cat crawls on top of me and loves me so hard, his claws draw blood. I was so lonely, I did nothing to stop it.

There are lights in this house I want to turn on, but I can’t find their switches. Outside, an engine turns and turns in the night, but never catches.

--Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz