#poems for mothers

[annagracewood]

The mothers the world needs today by Kathryn Blackburn Peck

Mothers with courage; mothers who pray,These are the kind the world needs today.Mother who think, who study and plan;Mothers who laugh as much as they can,Having the gift that is better than money–The habit of seeing that some things are funny.Mothers whose faith never wavers or falters;Mothers whose spirits the world never alters;Loving the right and scorning the wrong;Facing the problems of…

[mysterieuxclairdelune]

{Hannah Green, from "Are you still hungry, Mother?"/ Anne Carson/Sam Gordon, "A Mother's Hate"/ Ella Wilson/ Joan Tierney/ Ella Wilson/ Ocean Vuong, from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous/ Unknown/ Nayyirah Waheed/ Sharon Olds, “Holding To A Wall, Treading Saltwater”/ John Green, Turtles All the Way Down/ Safia Elhillo, "an inheritance," published in Narrative Northeast/ Annie Ernaux, from I Remain in Darkness/ Poplar Street by Chen Chen/ Unknown/ Tumblr User: @inkskinned/ Elena Poniatowska, from "La Flor de Lis," published c. January 2011/ Kyung-Sook Shin, Please Look After Mom}

[hrokkall]

Mama gave me music lessons,

now I play the saddest songs

[asoftepiloguemylove]

I HAVE MY MOTHER'S FACE AND HER GRIEF

Janet Fitch // Lady Bird (2017) dir. Greta Gerwig // Chen Chen // Youadan Teddy // Ocean Vuong Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong // Mitski Class of 2013 // 誰も知らない Nobody Knows (2004) dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda // Fatima Aamer Bilal days where my whole world is my bed. // death-born-aphrodite (tumblr) // Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous // Hieu Minh Nguyen Buffet Etiquette

[ivynightshade]

mother, you were right- i do damage. for the sake of all the damage that’s been done to me.

[fatima aamer bilal, excerpts from days where my whole world is my bed / coffin heart? bury me. / all hunger is, is love. / shame is a girl’s second skin / i mother it, the absence of her, iii. i am not a person that can be loved for a very long time.]

[lovely-abeille]

on being the daughter of the family

if my body could speak, blythe baird // i put the coffin out to sea, lisa marie basile // @/belovedbi // ? // been a son, nirvana // elektra, sophokles; translated by anne carson // ? // churching, kristin chang

[scrapnik]

🇵🇸 May We Be Free, Together. One genocided peoples to another. We stand with Palestine, now and forever. 🇦🇲

Care for Gaza (Direct Paypal)

E-Sims for Gaza (Showing Where/How to give them)

Palestine Children Relief Fund

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Daily Click For Palestine (Help by at least clicking this daily, it may not be much but it counts for something at least.)

BDS's website, remember to follow the boycott.

[soracities]

Czesław Miłosz, from “It Was Winter” (tr. Czesław Miłosz, Renata Gorczynski, Robert Hass, & Robert Pinsky), New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 [ID'd]

[musings-n-museums]

being an immigrant child / growing up + away from your parents

"anak" by freddie aguilar // laundromat photos by @sunflowrrbabe // "everything everywhere all at once" directed by daniel Kwan, daniel Scheinert // "ladybird" directed by greta gerwig // "a letter to my 13 year old self" by laufey // "class of 2013" by mitski // "be brave be free" by zeppelinmoon

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

[lunchboxpoems]

LUCILLE CLIFTON (again and again and again ♥️)

[inkskinned]

oh, i love the way relationships develop their own personal language of love. when all that joy shows the way they love you. i love when it is a little icon to who they are, to how you get along with them.

my sister takes a picture of a dead bug and sends it to me - this is you. my friend asks me how the move is going; she put a reminder in her phone to check up on me. i put a piece of ice down my friend's back, he returns the favor by holding my phone over my head and making me jump to catch it. jason and i scream-sing green day while going all of 15 miles an hour down country roads. molly is who i go to for a quiet night in with 5 dollar wine.

i go out for dinner with them and have to step outside to take a phone call; when i come back they've ordered my favorite appetizer without needing to be asked. andrew and i have a long-standing tradition of him picking me up to spike me directly into the first soft-looking surface around. i don't even need to speak to my best friend - she and i will just look at each other and have an entire conversation. burst out laughing at 3 PM, high and cackling like we're evil witches. i just moved by myself into a new city - my brother keeps introducing me to his friends that now live close to me. he always says - oh yeah, this is sibling and then pretends to ignore me. for days now, my family has been in and out of my apartment, just tinkering with things; making sure i am settling in nicely.

i usually have watermelon instead of cake for my birthday; kim forces a full yankee candle into the rind so i can have something to blow out and wish on. for 20 minutes on a saturday, all us grown adults crawl into one bed to have a cuddle puddle like we're in high school again. every 20 seconds someone starts giggling, and then we're laughing again. nick calls me from california; we both groan about the price of tickets, agonizing. miranda and i meet up in the city for the first time in years - without discussing it beforehand, the minute we lay eyes on each other, we both strike gruesome little gremlin poses instead of waving. dean always goes for the hug. joe always does a single firm handshake. sometimes i think about my friends and get so happy i just start crying.

oh, how wonderful to live in a world where affection is biologically ingrained in us. how wonderful that affection helps us build our single greatest strength - community. how wonderful that affection is our body's way of saying - thing is good, let's keep. how wonderful, this language, this skein we weave! to show the other person - i might not always say it. but i love that you live in me.

[cinnamoniniette]

my phone, my cigarette, my keys, my old-soul coffee enwrapped in one palm. my denim pocket unhurt from the sharpness pivoting in my right arm. this is what i am accustomed to. this is what i was born for. balancing myself for the creation of men, for men, with men. babydoll, petal, flower girl? names embroidered not taloned in my porcelain skin. babybrown, ribbon beneath my knees, braided lashes.

[unspokengrief]

You’d love me if I was gentle, right? If I wasn’t so bitter at my mother. If I wasn’t so loud, so blunt, so damaged from my past. You’d love me if I was smaller, right?

My whole life I have been trying to make myself smaller. To live a life without an echo, without a shadow. I keep my curtains closed, my head down and use my inside voice just like I’m told.

I am just a girl, occupying the space I was given when I was 5, too afraid to ask for more.

I am confined to the smallest room, in a large, empty house. I know what I am and what I could’ve been. While they are discovering the ocean, I am still trying to unlock the door. And if all that lies on the other side of the door is settled dust, please find me a comfortable place to rest. I promise I will never ask for more.

I have seen what emptiness has done to my mother and the door never unlocks. The wound never closes.

— Hannah Green, ‘As The Dust Settles’.

[tendermimi]

Ocean Vuong / Dear T

Shane McCrae / To Make a Wound

[asoftepiloguemylove]

HOW DID I GO FROM GROWING UP TO BREAKING DOWN? // ON GROWING UP

Mother Mother Mamma Told Me // unknown // 어른들은 몰라요 Young Adult Matters (2021) dir. Hwan Lee // Kristin Chang Churching // unknown // Salman Rushdie East, West // Lorde Ribs // Cameron Awkward-Rich The Child Formerly Known As _____ // Lorde // unknown // Leanna Firestone Least Favorite Only Child // リリイ・シュシュのすべて All About Lily Chou-Chou (2001) dir. Shunji Iwai // Richard Siken Crush // unknown // Hala Alyan I'm Not Speaking First

[ivynightshade]

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i mother it, the absence of her ii. i was hard to bear from the very start.’