— a girl is a haunted house, tathève simonyan
[text ID: “I could’ve lived like this”, echoed in my head. / As I looked around, my eyes unthinkingly clung to places where I could’ve hidden my selves: the ones that didn’t come to being and the one that I was. In the cupboards of this kitchen I could’ve buried all the women I could’ve grown into. While doing so, I would’ve put on the apron of the one who inhabited the kitchen. The cups and the glasses would’ve made place for me. I could’ve easily found a home in between the kitchen table and refrigerator. As the fragrance of rosemary and thyme found their way to me, a picture found its way to the back of my eyes: a hushed scene, full of contentment, a shot of me standing in the center of this kitchen, feet thick brown trucks giving birth to dozens of snakelike radixes, covered in colorful moss, devoid of flowers but who needs flowers when all they do is wilt anyway? I would’ve thought so, had I been the me of that frame. / I could’ve been content here, not happy, but content. The cutlery and the plates would’ve made place for me. The dull roar of the washing machine would’ve hidden my cries, with the same diligence it sheltered my mother’s. The “what ifs” of this particular scenario smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. / I could’ve been content here. I thought as I placed the coffee cup on the countertop next to the gas stove: the surface always wet for it filled the space between the sink and the stove, in between water and fire. / I could’ve been content here. I repeated as I unscrewed the lid of the coffee jar and took out a spoonful of the umber powder. / While turning on the gas and putting the cezve on its designated place, I cursed the mind that yearned for more, yearned to be more than what it was supposed to be. I cursed the eyes that only saw what was not in front of them, hands that wished to touch what wasn’t theirs to touch and the tongue that longed to taste what wasn’t hers to taste. I cursed myself because I understood that I could’ve been content here, and as the umber froth fought its way to the surface, my tears caved in to the gravitational force.]
Anne Sexton, from “Doors, Doors, Doors,” in The Complete Poems [ID in alt text]
Catherine Gildiner, Good Morning, Monster: Five Heroic Journeys to Emotional Recovery
beat me to it - brendan maclean/catalog of unabashed gratitude - ross gay/quietvoiced/it ends or it doesn't - caitlyn siehl/white ferrari - frank ocean/l.a. winter - louisa melcher/schuyler peck/honeybee - trista mateer/letters from medea - salma deera/harrow the ninth - tamsyn muir
[id: ten screenshots of lyrics and quotes. they read:
image 1: it's not that i'm alone/it's you're not here.
image two: i am sorry. i am grateful./i just want us to be friend now, forever./take this bowl of blackberries from the garden./the sun has made them warm./i picked them just for you. i promise/i will try to stay on my side of the couch.
image three: (12 minutes ago) she said: you're my favorite friend/i'm sorry that i want you like a lover.
image 4: it ends or it doesn't./that's what you say. that's/how you get through it./the tunnel, the night,/the pain, the love./if the sun never comes up,/you find a way to live without it./if they don't come back,/you sleep in the middle of the bed,/learn how to make enough coffee/for yourself alone./adapt. adjust./it ends or it doesn't./it ends or it doesn't./we do not perish.
image 5: i care for you still and i will forever/that was my part of the deal, honest/we got so familiar.
image 6: january 8th, i put on the dress you hate/laugh at my own jokes/fake a smile for my date/how do i love myself and not love you?/you made me too specific to be known by someone new.
image 7: i don't miss you. i don't. but it's hard to listen to songs from that time, the seven years of it, and not see the sunlight fade on that highway leaving vegas from your passenger seat. feel the hours we still have left to go -- the road ahead of us, the hum of a conversation too far now to hear. your shape and mine and how we existed in that moment, in love. when there was nothing other than the steadying idea that yes, of course i'm here, so yes, you are too. the anticipating rise of summer or a reunion of your family that felt like mine, or the two weeks of breath before school starts again. how to watch it all and not feel a twinge, never longing for it back. i can remember you, feel our ghosts in a room above my eyes and recognize we will never know each other like that again. allowing myself to exist in the memories i don't love anymore. it's okay. it feels as real to me as it did then, and i'm glad it was beautiful when it was. but there's nothing here i'd return to. dec. 14, 2020 [schuyler peck]
image 8: i promised no more poetry/i'd rather think of this/as a confession:/you are still the first person/i want to share new things with.
image 9: the centre of every poem is this:/i have loved you. i have had to deal with that.
image 10: you hating me always meant more than anyone else in this hot and stupid universe loving me. at least i'd had your full attention. /end id]
mosaic tiles ✤
Vivienne Westwood Corsets
“Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.”
— Pablo Neruda, from “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair” published c. 1924
~ Beautiful Magnolias swaying in a fountain
Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West (c. October 1928)
Phoebe Bridgers, Moon Song
Franz Kafka (misattributed)
Leo Brynielsson, The Moon Has Fallen
Mitski, Happy
Richard Siken, Anyway
Richard Monckton Milnes, Lady Moon
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Hymn to the Moon
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) dir. Frank Capra
Rumi, Some Kiss We Want
George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Margaret Atwood, Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later