Love’s Reckoning

Longing poems

The longing poetry archive: poems about desire, distance and wanting what cannot be reached — each with a note from the author and a reading you can listen to aloud.

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Endurance Test for One
by Ella Tan · 30 August 2026
A poem about affection with a built-in emergency exit — devotion that endures a sentence that never becomes a future.
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A Quiet Ordinary
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
Ella Tan
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Haiku I
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
April 23rd, 2025 — five days after the first kiss
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Haiku II
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
April 23rd, 2025
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Kisses in the Kitchen
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
For Gijs — May 2025
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Peachy Plans
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
May–June 2025
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Gaudí and Mondrian
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
A portrait of us
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The Warmth of Mr G
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
During the renovation of Lavenderstraat
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Zo Blijft het Warm
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
(Thus It Stays Warm)
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Our Home
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
Winter 2025–2026
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Gentle Orbit
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
September 5th, 2025 — after London, before Yasmina's birthday. She asked him to give it a title. He never did.
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What He Could Not Give Equally
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
July 2025 — the first great wound
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Withering Blooms
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
April 8th, 2026 — the seventh poem, sent into the silence
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Demolition of Tulips
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
Keukenhof — remembered after
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He Loved But Could Not Stay
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
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The Demolition of Love
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
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The Sagrada Família
by Ella Tan · 24 August 2026
a portrait of Ella
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