Here we are. This is the first blog post, officially, although I am going to back populate yesterday’s. I was going to tell you how I thought I’d go about this to start off, but here, see for yourself:

So the title of this blog post, pry it open with your love, comes from a Bon Iver song called “Beth / Rest” which you can hear a wonderful rendition of at the end of this youtube video of a studio session. I’ve been mulling over this theme quite a bit lately, mostly subconsciously and in my interactions with people. Awfully present in mind given I’m away for the summer and have basically no friends (at least in the capacity I’m used to) here at Princeton, but that’s another story. Also present thinking about this fall, final year of college. The bad news is I’ll only have a few super close friends because many people graduated, and I’m not sure where to look next. The good news is I have space to love new people, and thinking about that, I’m rather excited but also unsure how it will go. All of this to say I’m looking forward to prying people open with my love.

“Diary Entry #28: Ars Poetica”, Diannely Antigua

The first line of this poem is one that I hold onto over and over and over, and is incredibly topical to getting close to new people, prying them open. I start where I am most afraid: and then an addiction to beauty is a place to keep a loss.

“3 O’clock in the Morning”, Jasmine Mans

I think I’ve sent this to Max before. I am somewhat repulsed by the notion of uniqueness, of being “first to discover God” or something but it isn’t actually like that. It’s uniqueness in character, in loving. This paints a very clear picture in my mind of a type of conversation I have with certain people. How lovely. Which actually, reminds me of the final stanza of Tracy K. Smith’s “Self Portrait as the Letter Y”. We stay up talking all kinds of shit.

“Lovers in Samarkand”, Hamid Ismailov

I don’t have too much to say about this one. I find it pretty and vivid and real-surreal.

“Sun Valley Lodge”, Ellie Sawatzky

This is one of my favorite “tone” poems. Like, wow. Also very relatable. I came across this digging for “Allowables”, below.

“Final Curve”, Langston Hughes”

This was also refound while looking for “Allowables”, but I think this is much of what I’ve been hitting up against these past two years. And it’s a relief to see others around me start to bump into this as well, and I’m interested to see how they process it. I’m not really sure we ever satisfactorily process this but one can try, no, one must try. I think. Sort of seeing this in a person that I think I shall be newly trying to pry open with my love, and that makes me glad. That last statement is a chicken / egg situation.

“Allowables”, Nikki Giovanni

This, the poem I made all this trek for. Another favorite “tone” poem. The amount of meek and scared that comes through. And what are we prying open, but the meek and scared inside ourselves? Let it crawl out.

“Vino Tanto”, Sandra Cisneros

Sort of on a similar theme as “Sun Valley Lodge”, above, but a little more positive-sounding. I find myself looking forward to things like are described in the second stanza, the third too. That, being the open that has been pried. A toast, to that.

I don’t imagine most of these, should I continue them, will be anywhere near this long or this hashed out, and this one isn’t even that hashed out. Anyhow, I’d like this to be either a record or some flowing or hopefully both. I shall try to adjust into it and we shall see.