Alison Birch

A series —

—Waking Up In 2025 —Me - (most of us) A series Pictured Emmy Rossum

—Waking Up In 2025

Not really sure how to feel about it I want you to stay Stay I want you to stay 🎶 Rihanna Side profile.

Not really sure how to feel about it
I want you to stay
Stay
I want you to stay

~ Rihanna

without you I can't remember the details of all my days But I can remember every line of your face I can't remember where I was this day last year I can remember the way you leaned forward to talk to me I can't remember Every argument I can remember every loving gesture and The way your eyes said everything you couldn't I can remember Your laugh, the way you called me beautiful But I'm forgetting —the sound of your voice I sink down in the remembering so heavy are the memories of love the sun sets on another day without you ~ Alison P. Birch 2021

For your Thursday
without you
~ Alison P. Birch
I can remember
Your laugh, the way you called me beautiful But l'm forgetting the sound of your voice/I sink down in the remembering/ so heavy are the memories of love

Photo of a small life-like model of a fox lying down facing left created with soft textile material, the model rests on the white hands of the artists, the background is white

Mikaela Bartlett, UK #artist who works in needle felt and sculpts creatures out of natural/dyed sheep and alpaca wool #WomensArt

My heart is a little larger than the entire universe.

Fernando Pessoa, 1934: tr. Richard Zenith

John Coltrane

These days
I let my soul do the talking

Arthur: To Iris, I can tell you are a leading lady, but for some reason, you behave like a best friend. Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! ~ The Holiday A bench decorated for Christmas in a park, and two people walking in the distance.

Arthur: To Iris, I can tell you are a leading lady, but for some reason, you behave like a best friend.

Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake!

~ The Holiday ❄️

We were together.
I forget the rest.

~ Walt Whitman

Orson Welles on the set of "The Magnificent Ambersons" (1942)

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.
(Diane Arbus)

Portrait of Vava (1953-56)
by Marc Chagall

For your Thursday
~ Sarah Galley Magic for Liars
—and they go
They always go.

The thing about me is, I let things go. I let people go. I don't know how to hang on to them;
I try, but I hold too tight, not tight enough, or something in between, and they go. They always go.

My sister made this

A Christmas tree with colored lights and a star on a floating dock. The tree is reflecting off a blue body of water. The sun is going down behind the mountains. ❄️

Good night, friends. ❄️

A woman in boyfriend jeans with holes in the knees, white shoes, and pink peonies in her hand, falling towards the ground. I think I've seen this picture before - 💕 your heart and mine just loved each other ~ Alison P. Birch

your heart
and mine
just loved
each other

~ Alison P. Birch

When you love
someone,
you love the person
as they are, and not as
you'd like them to be.

- Leo Tolstoy

Cold Days (2024)
by Francisco Fonseca

a man and a woman are standing on a set of stairs holding a piece of paper over their heads . ALT: a man and a woman are standing on a set of stairs holding a piece of paper over their heads .

Once you get to a certain age, moving is No Fun AT ALL — have fun with the fireplace & balcony 😬.

This is stunning, Susan. Congrats. ⭐️

Without saying much, you say we are insufficient. With the page, you build yourself a replica & lie down in its body while it revs, inaudibly, for truth.

Susan L. Leary Mouth Because you are physically worn down, I build a mouth for you from insufficient materials. I sew letters onto the wrong tongue & collect stray teeth like dice, string them awkwardly from a too-lit ceiling. Later, you spit into a paper bag, then bite down into a metal tray so someone can thieve an impression of your mouth in defense mode. There is a specific type of silence, you'd said. To survive this place you must be repressed. You must sink yourself into the hole of your own damage, strip the mind of sensory overload-drown out the noise so the noise is just noise: eat cake. Funny, your whole life everyone was yelling into that hole, offering you more mouths than limbs, offering you more "you's" than could ever be relevant. The construction of anything is complaint, is highway robbery, is unadulterated system. Without saying much, you say we are insufficient. With the page, you build yourself a replica & lie down in its body while it revs, inaudibly, for truth. You create your own mouth, a second mouth. You speak as it fills with water.

New poem in The Louisville Review from the new manuscript. I am grateful to the editors, especially Flora K. Schildknecht, for including this one: another poem for the brother. 💙

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is also frightful
Everything is frightful
I have anxiety

View of the Petit Champlain (Quebec) 2017
by Richard Savoie

A mob of schnooks currently controls the U.S. federal government. Their wanton cruelty is matched only by their collective gormlessness. But the more disturbing fact is that millions of Americans think these schnooks should be supported and admired, rather than pilloried on the edge of town.

A woman in boyfriend jeans with holes in the knees, white shoes, and pink peonies in her hand, falling towards the ground. I think I've seen this picture before - 💕 your heart and mine just loved each other ~ Alison P. Birch

your heart
and mine
just loved
each other

~ Alison P. Birch

As someone who lived through 2025, I find this very relatable.

My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.

~ Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice