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just another list of "beautiful" words

for your next poem/story

Agelast - a person who never laughs

Afroth - in a state of lively or angry excitement

Apatheia - freedom or release from emotion or excitement

Biblioklept - one who steals books

Calendula - any of a small genus (Calendula) of yellow-rayed composite herbs of temperate regions

Deipnosophist - a person skilled in table talk

Ductile - easily led or influenced; capable of being fashioned into a new form

Eremitic - characterized by ascetic solitude in mode of life

Imbibe - to take in or up; to receive into the mind and retain

Intellection - the act of the intellect or exercise of the intellect; a synonym of thought and reasoning

Jentacular - pertaining to breakfast

Obliquity - deviation from moral rectitude or sound thinking; indirectness or deliberate obscurity of speech or conduct

Pernoctate - to stay up or out all night

Saccade - a small rapid jerky movement of the eye especially as it jumps from fixation on one point to another (as in reading)

Solitudinarian - a person who leads a secluded or solitary life

Solivagant - rambling alone; marked by solitary wandering

Troglodyte - a member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves

Umbrageous - inclined to take offense easily, belligerent

Variegated - having discrete markings of different colors

Vestige - a trace, mark, or visible sign left by something (such as an ancient city or a condition or practice) vanished or lost

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

More: Lists of Beautiful Words

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Governed by hunger, he wanted only not to want.

from "Wind in a Box" by Terrance Hayes

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Wind in a Box by Terrance Hayes

—after Lorca

I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice. I want to learn to walk without blinking.

I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle's father, the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions

and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill can return after sleeping each season, I want to walk out of this house wearing nothing but wind.

I want to greet you, I want to wait for the bus with you weighing less than a chill. I want to fight off the bolts

of gray lighting the alcoves and winding paths of your hair. I want to fight off the damp nudgings of snow. I want to fight off the wind.

I want to be the wind and I want to fight off the wind with its sagging banner of isolation, its swinging

screen doors, its gilded boxes, and neatly folded pamphlets of noise. I want to fight off the dull straight lines of two by fours and endings, your disapprovals,

your doubts and regulations, your carbon copies. If the locust can abandon its suit,

I want a brand new name. I want the pepper's fury and the salt's tenderness. I want the virtue of the evening rain, but not its gossip.

I want the moon's intuition, but not its questions. I want the malice of nothing on earth, I want to enter

every room in a strange electrified city and find you there. I want your lips around the bell of flesh

at the bottom of my ear. I want to be the mirror, but not the nightstand. I do not want to be the light switch. I do not want to be the yellow photograph

or book of poems. When I leave this body, Woman, I want to be pure flame. I want to be your song.

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Let's just say all those knuckle- sandwiches taught me mercy. If you can remember the dreams where your mouth is full of mulch, you can imagine the tongue in a granny knot, a train wreck of a sentence jammed inside a throat, a gullet piping steam, the air inside a fist.

from "The Blue Terrance" by Terrance Hayes

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Man and Dog by Siegfried Sassoon

Who’s this—alone with stone and sky? It’s only my old dog and I— It’s only him; it’s only me; Alone with stone and grass and tree.

What share we most—we two together? Smells, and awareness of the weather. What is it makes us more than dust? My trust in him; in me his trust.

Here’s anyhow one decent thing That life to man and dog can bring; One decent thing, remultiplied Till earth’s last dog and man have died.

(found in Dog's Best Friend: The Story of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield)

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To a Dog, writer unknown

The rugs lie smooth; the curtains are not torn, I haven't missed a shoe or rag today. The house is dreadfully still, until I wish I heard four feet come pitpat down the hall.

The soft moist nose that pushed against my hand The paw that touched me to demand its wish, The pleading lively eye, the plaintive bark— What sweet annoyances they now would seem!

(found in Dog's Best Friend: The Story of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield)

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“We all have forests in our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.”

—  Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Wind’s Twelve Quarters (Harper & Row, 1975)

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“To say goodbye is to die a little.”

— Raymond Chandler

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How to show emotions

Part IV

How to show bitterness

tightness around their eyes

pinched mouth

sour expression on their face

crossed arms

snorting angrily

turning their eyes upward

shaking their head

How to show hysteria

fast breathing

chest heaving

trembling of their hands

weak knees, giving in

tears flowing down their face uncontrollably

laughing while crying

not being able to stand still

How to show awe

tension leaving their body

shoulders dropping

standing still

opening mouth

slack jaw

not being able to speak correctly

slowed down breathing

wide eyes open

softening their gaze

staring unabashingly

How to show shame

vacant stare

looking down

turning their head away

cannot look at another person

putting their head into their hands

shaking their head

How to show being flustered

blushing

looking down

nervous smile

sharp intake of breath

quickening of breath

blinking rapidly

breaking eye contact

trying to busy their hands

playing with their hair

fidgeting with their fingers

opening mouth without speaking

Part I + Part II + Part III + Part V

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feeling called out today

credit: _ADWills

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Light and shadow are opposite sides of the same coin. We can illuminate our paths or darken our way. It is a matter of choice.

— Maya Angelou

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this sucks so bad i need to [remembers suicide jokes only worsen my mental health] put on the best talent show this towns ever seen

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Do you have any good words to use instead of exclaim?

Thank you, I love this blog so much!

So glad to hear this. Thank you! <3 I love making these writing references as well.

Exclaim - to cry out, speak, or utter in a strong or sudden burst of emotion

Assert - to state or declare positively and often forcefully or aggressively

Aver - to allege or assert in pleading

Babble - to talk enthusiastically or excessively

Bellow - to make the loud deep hollow sound

Bewail - to express deep sorrow for usually by wailing and lamentation

Blabber - to talk foolishly or excessively

Blat - to declare positively; to utter loudly or foolishly

Blunder - to utter stupidly, confusedly, or thoughtlessly

Blurt (out) - to utter abruptly and impulsively

Bray - to utter or play loudly or harshly

Burst out - to say (something) suddenly

Caterwaul - to make a harsh cry

Chirp - to utter (something) with a cheerful liveliness; to make sharply critical, complaining, or taunting remarks

Clamor - to utter or proclaim insistently and noisily

Crow - to utter a sound expressive of pleasure

Gab - to talk in a rapid or thoughtless manner

Gabble - to say with incoherent rapidity

Gush - to make an effusive display of affection or enthusiasm

Hoot - to shout or laugh usually derisively

Howl - to cry out loudly and without restraint under strong impulse (such as pain, grief, or amusement)

Inveigh - to protest or complain bitterly or vehemently

Orate - to speak in an elevated and often pompous manner

Perorate - to deliver a long or grandiloquent oration

Repine - to feel or express dejection or discontent

Roar - to utter or emit a full loud prolonged sound

Screech - a high shrill piercing cry usually expressing pain or terror

Shout - to utter a sudden loud cry

Shriek - to utter a sharp shrill sound

Shrill - to utter or emit an acute piercing sound

Snarl - to give vent to anger in surly language

Spout - to speak or utter readily, volubly, and at length

Squall - to utter in a strident voice

Squawk - to utter a harsh abrupt scream

Squeal - to cause to make a loud shrill noise

Vociferate - to utter or cry out loudly

Wail - to express a prolonged cry or sound expressing grief or pain; loud lamentation

Whine - to utter a high-pitched plaintive or distressed cry

Yammer - to utter repeated cries of distress or sorrow; to utter persistent complaints; to talk persistently or volubly and often loudly

Yawp - (or yaup) to make a raucous noise

Yowl - to utter a loud long cry of grief, pain, or distress

Hope this helps. If it inspires your writing in any way, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read your work!

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fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i am an observer, but not by choice.’

[text id: my fist has always been clenched around the handle of an invisible suitcase. / i am always ready to leave. / there is not a single room in this world where i belong.]

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Mausoleum by Terrance Hayes

Well, let's get right to it: my parents live in a mausoleum. It's never too late for someone to kill someone else. No obit says of the recently dead: "He was cruel, he was low down and selfish, the world is brighter without him," but wouldn't that be great? In October: the leaves, the leave-taking. Here, you will not be getting something for nothing. It is not all new or available for a limited time only. Here, one gets more things to get more things. When the blood exits, it does not return. And one day maybe you find a box of your mother's poems in the basement. Wouldn't that be great? And to do nothing! To grow huge and short-breathed like a mantle of what-nots. Like the elderly. Like a childless couple with three cars. Like a house with a television in every room.