#ocean vuong

metamorphesque:

“Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves? A story, after all, is a kind of swallowing. To open a mouth, in speech, is to leave only the bones, which remain untold.”

— Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Ocean Vuong, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”

beautymyeyes-see:

Ocean Vuong, from Daily Bread, Night Sky with Exit Wounds

“how our hands hurt us, then give us / the world. How you can love the world / until there’s nothing left to love / but yourself.”

— Ocean Vuong, Tell Me Something Good

— Ocean Vuong, Ars Poetica as the Maker

How else do we return

to ourselves but to fold

the page so it points to

the good part.

- Ocean Vuong, “Time is a Mother”

uisge:

ocean vuong on writing metaphors

i need poetry recommendations on the mary oliver/anne sexton/jenny holzer/ocean vuong/susan sontag kind of wave pls send me some

When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?

– Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

dreamsofacommonlanguage:

Being queer saved my life. Often we see queerness as deprivation. But when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me. I had to make alternative routes; it made me curious; it made me ask, “Is this enough for me?”

— Ocean Vuong

lifeinpoetry:

                                                    & we’re just too tired
                                           to walk home we’re
                                                     just two boys lying

                  in the snow &
you’re smiling because the stars
                            are just stars & you know

                   we’ll only live once
                          this time

—Ocean Vuong, from “Dear T,” Time Is a Mother

dreamsofacommonlanguage:

Being queer saved my life. Often we see queerness as deprivation. But when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me. I had to make alternative routes; it made me curious; it made me ask, “Is this enough for me?”

— Ocean Vuong

metamorphesque:

   — Ocean Vuong, Reasons for Staying

[text ID: Because this mess I made I made with love.]

“the road which leads me to you is safe even when it runs into oceans.”

- edmond jabès

“Don’t you know? A mother’s love

neglects pride

the way fire

neglects the cries

of what it burns.”

—Ocean Vuong, from “Headfirst”, in Night Sky with Exit Wounds

—Ocean Vuong,fromOn Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (vialunamonchtuna)

                            like any god
-forsaken thing, I want nothing more
                                    than my breaths.

—Ocean Vuong, from The Smallest Measure

lifeinpoetry:

Because a blade of brown rye, multiplied by thousands, makes a purple field.

Because this mess I made I made with love.

Because they came into my life, these ghosts, like something poured.

Because crying, believe it or not, did wonders.

Because my uncle never killed himself—but simply died, on purpose.

Because I made a promise.

—Ocean Vuong, from “Reasons for Staying,” Time Is a Mother

earthsignsupremacist:

“I don’t know desire other than the need to be shattered and rebuilt”

—Ocean Vuong, from Night Sky with Exit Wounds; My Father Writes From Prison.

“I am thinking of beauty again, how some things are hunted because we have deemed them beautiful. If, relative to the history of our planet, an individual life is so short, a blink, as they say, then to be gorgeous, even from the day you’re born to the day you die, is to be gorgeous only briefly.”

stars

ocean vuong dear t (via@orpheuslament) \ franz wright god’s silence: “east boston, 1996”(via@luthienne) \ @mabtis\@mabtis

kofi

Emily Dickinson- Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain…. X

Wendy Cope ‐  I love you. I’m glad I exist. X

“Too much joy, I swear, is lost in our desperation to keep it.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? I miss you more than I remember you.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“I wanted to leave, to say stop. But the price of confessing, I learned, was that you get an answer.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“Why did I feel more myself while reaching for him, my hand midair, than I did having touched him?”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“Ma. You once told me that memory is a choice. But if you were god, you’d know it’s a flood.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“But your son is still under the trees beside the boy you will never meet.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“I look him dead in the eyes and do what you do. I refuse to die.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“Who will be lost in the story we tell ourselves? Who will be lost in ourselves? A story, after all, is a kind of swallowing. To open a mouth, in speech, is to leave only the bones, which remain untold.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“You once told me that the human eye is god’s loneliest creation. How so much of the world passes through the pupil and still it holds nothing. The eye, alone in its socket, doesn’t even know there’s another one, just like it, an inch away, just as hungry, as empty.”

— Ocean Vuong,from“On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“When does a war end? When can I say your name and have it mean only your name and not what you left behind?”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

“I am handsome at exactly three angles and deadly from everywhere else. I am writing you from inside a body that used to be yours. Which is to say, I am writing as a son.”

— Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, published c. 2019.

voirlvmer:

“needing beauty / to be more than hurt gentle / enough to hold”

—Ocean Vuong, from “The
Bull”,Time is a Mother