start date: 19/07/2021 | end date: 19/07/2021

genre: poetry

summary: ocean vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. none of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers

thoughts: ouch there are a lot of bangers in this one, especially all the like... religious guilt that hit close to home.

• "maybe the body is the only questuin an answer we can't extinguish. how many kisses have we crushed to out lips in prayer == only to pikc up the pieces?"
• "as if my finger, / tracing your collarbone / behind closed doors, / was enough / to erase myself. to forget / we built this house knowing / it won't last. how / does anyone stop / without cutting / off his hands? / another torch"
• "don't we touch each other just to prove we are still here?"
• "maybe we pray on our knees because god only listens when we're this close to the devil"