— Anna Akhmatova, “The Sentence,” from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer
[text ID: Today I have so much to do: / I must kill memory once and for all, / I must turn my soul to stone, / I must learn to live again—]
“You came to the side of the bed and sat staring at me. Then you kissed me—I felt hot wax on my forehead. I wanted it to leave a mark: that’s how I knew I loved you. Because I wanted to be burned, stamped, to have something in the end—”— Louise Glück, from “Marathon,” in The Triumph of Achilles
you could never stomach gore, though, could you? so what exactly is this, that you’re doing to yourself? what would you call that? you flinch at the sight of spilled red wine - but here, in this place, you call a sharpness the divine.