"TELL ME, WHAT IS IT YOU PLAN TO DO WITH YOUR ONE WILD AND PRECIOUS LIFE?"
-Mary Oliver
I plan on washing my sheets, cooking pasta, and cleaning
broken glass off the kitchen floor quickly lest it cut up any
little feet. I plan on eating peaches in the summer and
oysters only in months that end in -er because that's what
my mother taught me. I plan on making lovers out of poetry
and poetry out of lovers. I plan to eat tomato salad with
salt, oil, and hot French bread while my cousin regales me
with her stories. I will swallow the bitterness of missing
entire years together. I plan to say bless you when someone
sneezes. Excuse me when I pass them by. I plan to forgive
—even the people who don't deserve it. I plan on giving
loneliness a warm place in my bed when I need her. I plan
on hosting dinner parties and listening to my friend's
laughter in the half-light of evening. I plan on sending the
letter. I plan on falling in love often. Often, with the wrong
people, which will make the right one's love go down like
milk and honey. I plan on making mistakes, making love,
getting sunburnt, and still basking in the sunlight.
What is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?
Mary, I intend to live it.
-Margaux PaulMore from Margaux Paul ↓
* @margauxpoetry on Instagram
* Margaux Paul on Substack
* Her book, Unsent Letters, is out now.
Submissions are open. If you have a poem you want me to read on the podcast, now’s the time.
I’m looking for the one that lights you up. The one you’re proud of. The one you can’t read without crying. The one that makes you feel something big.
Let’s make space for the one this Fall on One Poem Only.
Deadline is Thursday, July 31.
🍎 Submit Here 🍎
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