A room with a decorative door
A relationship structure that cannot account for exit is not consensual in any serious political sense. It may be consensual in the narrow legalistic sense. It may satisfy the workshop definition. It may have agreements, check-ins, shared language, color-coded calendars, and a truly demonic number of acronyms. But if the least secure person cannot leave without losing shelter, community, and reputation, the structure is not free. It is a room with a decorative door.
Source: Your Polycule is Not a Revolution by Tara Knight
On letting go of items
In the end, I decided to let it go, because who in the world would understand its meaning once I was gone?
Source: How to Practice by Ann Patchett
The nature of early experience
In this context, healing doesn’t mean correcting the past. And it doesn’t mean crafting a version of yourself somehow untouched by your unresolved history. To envision that form of recovery is to misconstrue the nature of early experience: it’s not something we outgrow but is something we grow through and from. The traces left behind are structural.
Source: Being small by Tom Wooldridge
Crackerbell
on I wandered
with arms and nitric startled eyes,
nitpicking my way through the world
when the electrical current
that runs in all directions
deep beneath the earth
shook me
and at once I felt
there are so many years to fail
that to fail them all, one by one,
would give me a double life,
and I took it.
Source: Crackerbell (fragment) by Mary Ruefle
White Rabbit's Morning
Source: White Rabbit’s Morning by Maria Safronova