Bianca Stone, From What Is Otherwise Infinite: Poems; “Cutting Odette’s Fingernails”

You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.

Albert Einstein

Ruth Awad, from “Let me be a lamb in a world that wants my lion”

for my unrequited crush (disguise)

she wakes at dawn when the sky is painted gold, and pink, to dress in drowsiness.

she doesn’t remember when it started, when her cheeks became so pink, when her heart grew unsteady whenever she tried to think, but now instead of colouring them flush, she drains the colours from that blush to keep and hide away lest someone see it and say her thoughts, spill them aloud— no. that couldn’t be allowed.

so now she wakes two hours earlier, when the sky is painted blue, to carve her cheeks and chap her lips and give off less than she might give so no one would see it and then ask how her glow had grown so fast why her heart beat unsteady over something that she wasn’t yet ready to know.

but instead of stifling it, as she wished, the glow grew and she began to know the hurt that followed, the cramps and aches and loving pains that carved out her heart and gleaned her happiness a constant rain.

until when she tried to cover it someone noticed the flush that couldn’t be missed, under her disguise, the hope that grew in her eyes, the stabs of knives in her heart, every  single  time.

she stifled that pain. till it went away, but to this day something faint stays the pink glow that was stolen from the sun the love in which she is the only one.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, from “Carmilla”

A year of ballerina tea and vodka

Some hearts understand each other even in silence.

Yasmine Mogahed

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution.”

— Albert Einstein

I learned not to trust people; I learned not to believe what they say but to watch what they do. I learned to suspect that everyone is capable of living a lie. I came to believe that other people - even when you think you know them well - are ultimately unknowable.

Lynn Barber

the thing is, ellen bass

Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Don Miguel Ruiz