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"'Yayoi.' Her voice was sweet. The lukewarm breeze brushed past her hair. Her familiar profile looked up warily at the overcast sky. I stood with her, watching the clouds in the far distance streaming past, blown by the wind. 'Yayoi, there's a typhoon coming.' In that moment, I had no doubt this girl was my older sister. I didn't say anything, but nodded. She turned to me and smiled. 'We'll lay our mattresses by the window tonight and watch the storm.'"

-- Banana Yoshimoto, The Premonition

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Edward Steichen - White Lotus, c.1940

also

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Suppose the stars are just our grief reflected back to us, proof that grief sometimes forgets its source, that it can find dead things no matter how distant.

Victoria Chang, from ‘Starlight, 1962’

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Sometimes you are the wound, sometimes the bandage.

Victoria Chang, The Trees Witness Everything - Love Letters

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Kathy Wu, from ‘White Asters’. Published in Tupelo Quarterly.

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on hedonism by anne carson

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eat delicious things in every sense. savor novels that unravel slowly, like decadent meals for the mind. let sunlight kiss ur skin, bask in its warmth like an endless summer. hold close the people who make you feel alive, kiss them tenderly, love them fiercely. laugh at bad jokes, the kind that make you roll ur eyes but secretly smile. plant basil on your windowsill, water it with care, breathe in its fragrance as you stir it into your meals. be unafraid to indulge in beauty, to notice it everywhere and to consume it greedily. there is no virtue in starving yourself of joy, no wisdom in rationing delight.

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Lin Onus - Reflections (Barmah Forest) 1994 – 95

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Clouds of pale blossom are becoming more visible at night.  I cup my cheeks with both hands when the wind moves through me.  Somewhere you are standing in a flooded field in bright sunlight. 

from this too is a glistening. Co-authored by Pratyusha, Nina Mingya Powles, Alycia Pirmohamed and Jessica J. Lee.

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I walk along the ravines of my childhood until the sloping pines begin to fade into alpine scrub. I direct my gaze across time.

from this too is a glistening. Co-authored by Pratyusha, Nina Mingya Powles, Alycia Pirmohamed and Jessica J. Lee.

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what is it like to write this story again in stagnant water    in deep water  in mirrors   I still see the wounds inside filmy cloth    like woven music  of thread and survival

from this too is a glistening. Co-authored by Pratyusha, Nina Mingya Powles, Alycia Pirmohamed and Jessica J. Lee.

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Mary Oliver, from “Summer Morning”, Red Bird

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