CLXXXIX

9/1: 

That tight chest feeling

Rising anxiety

From your stomach to your ribcage

Almost breaching the throat

Though wordless

My anatomy still succumbs to it on occasion

Without warning or explanation 

The general feeling of things not being ok

With me

I won’t escape this for a while

It seems

[Jean Campbell for Vogue Russia]

CLXXXV

Don’t fall in love in airports

At least not til you’ve boarded the plane

At least not til you’ve entered the gate

At least wait - 

Oh, there she goes again.

Strangers are romantic

It’s true what they say 

But strangers are never as desirable as you might think them to be

And the ones that are, it turns out

Are never strangers anyway

[Jean Campbell for Vogue Russia]

CLXXIII

Sometimes

by David Whyte

Sometimes

if you move carefully

through the forest,

breathing

like the ones

in the old stories,

who could cross

a shimmering bed of leaves

without a sound,

you come to a place

whose only task

is to trouble you

with tiny

but frightening requests,

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what

you are doing right now,

and

to stop what you

are becoming

while you do it,

questions

that can make

or unmake

a life,

questions

that have patiently

waited for you,

questions

that have no right

to go away.

[Jean Campbell for W Magazine]