What You Don’t Get Is Science Exists Because People Can Love. Medicine Exists Because People Love Each

The Farewell (2019)

Dearest Thanatos

i have spent a few days listening to the music you like. you have a tattoo of their band's logo on your ribs you got when you were still kind of a kid. my first tattoo was a bird instead. i did the math - we got our first tattoos in the same calendar year. isn't that kind of cool.

my mom loves hallmark movies, so i grew up thinking love would look like a firework. it feels like one, after all. it's just that my house wasn't safe. i thought love was a weapon, could be pointed at your eyes. could lose a finger to it, or teeth. my father used to say passion is everything. i thought that meant constant fighting was a good thing. i thought that meant love looked like a week of bickering, because it was worth the the weekend's boombox apology. i thought quiet love was boring. i thought love had to blot out everything, compel the body and the mind like puppetry. i thought love looks like ruining your own dinner table - but at least you set a feast.

but love looks like a scarf. your hands smoothing it down my chest, being sure each of the edges are tucked in, worried about my asthma attacks being cold-activated. i race you while i'm wearing heels, you hold my hand to guide me downhill while walking my dog. we dance in my living room to waltz of the flowers, i show you how to hold your arms in proper ballet port de bras. you write a song about looking out of my window while the snow falls. i ask you to text my friends back while i'm driving. you play dj in the front seat. somewhere on route 93, we start murmuring about secret things.

oh. there is a difference between peace and dispassion. it was never that i feared quiet, it's that i didn't know what safe felt like. i liked the chaos because it was familiar, not because it was kind. i think i used to fear the word wife. i didn't like the idea of long, lonely days and being yelled at for small things. i didn't like the idea of sacrificing my one beautiful life.

you meet my friends and make a point to learn things about them. we both get excited about the other person's passions. you read my book for hours, squinting at the small words. i try to understand basic guitar information. we talk for four hours on the phone while i string together a garland. we talk for six hours while you write a poem. i save a pintrest tip for the summer about making paper kites. i plan us a week-long trip to maine, map out my favorite places for an eventual hike. you fall asleep on the ride home, and i turn down the radio so it won't wake you up. your quiet hands fold over mine.

when i look up, the stars are brighter. how carefully you woven gold into the corners of my life. when i move, i feel some part of my soul reflected back onto you.

oh, love is not a net. it's a blanket.

After work I went to my boyfriend’s mom’s apartment and she had prepared eggplant three different ways and while we were eating it w bread we heard a huge fight happening outside on the next street over so we went on the terrazzo and saw blue flashing lights but couldn’t tell if the vehicle was the ambulance or the carabinieri and I laughed when I realized that everyone else was outside outside on their terraces too and bf’s mom yelled down to her friend one floor below us like “Guilia, ma cosa succede?” Friend was like “Boh” then they talked back and forth while I thought about how it felt like a scene in an old Italian movie where everyone in the small town is watching your business from their windows. It really does happen like that. Then we drank espresso and talked for two hours inside and I lived my evening happily ever after

I really like the word “smitten”. because at first glance you just think of sappy lovey-dovey stuff but also you have to remember this is a word that’s born of the word “smite.” a devastating word. a word that, summarized, means stricken. smitten means stricken as well — struck with devastating affection.

i love you, still, i’m sorry it’s not enough

1. silas denver melvin (@sweatermuppet) // 2. miren asiain lora // 3. nikki giovanni // 4. uma thurman // 5. @postsecret // 6. yves olade // 7. sufjan stevens via @promqueendyke // 8. anonymous response on a uquiz // 9. li-young lee // 10. @lovelornnn // 11. @heavensghost // 12. the avett brothers

for no particular reason, now seems like a good time to read "on tyranny" by timothy snyder. which teaches how dictatorships work and how one may navigate living under one. I am starting it now myself and will report back on what I learn.

he's the one who coined "don't obey in advance," meaning do not obey a law that does not exist yet. in our current situation, that means not doing things like try to scrub your internet presence of any sign of queerness, because being queer is currently legal in the USA and you are acting like it is not.

the impulse to anticipate is understandable, especially with such high stakes. but if you retreat before you are attacked, you lose before the fight begins. resist. connect to community and stand together. we need courage now, and we need each other.

we don't need to become small and fearful and alone, trying to blend in with nazis to save our own skins. and remember to whom that option is even available, and to whom it is not. we must prioritize protecting the latter groups of people and each other, collectively.

inside of you is courage you cannot even begin to imagine yet. what you have to do is keep the door open for it and be brave enough to care for your community. resist the temptation to just look out for number one instead.

i love this shit i need more examples