For Eva - Blog Posts
I don’t believe that the love between eva and I is coincidence. in this big, big universe, we happened to be in the same classroom. she was the first person to teach me that I did not need to change in order to be loved and is quite literally the definition of a boundless, unconditional love. I’m very lucky. I think some sort of divine power sent her to me. how her smile still calms me, a year later. how beautiful and brimming with life she is. thank you evka. I’m not sure you’ll ever read this but you have my heart.
Let it Snow (2019)
Trigger warning:
I tried to end my life exactly a year ago today. I came dangerously close to dying, spent weeks in a hospital. my life completely changed. this morning I woke up early to a quiet world, save for some birds outside my window. I saw the night change to dusk turn to morning and couldn’t help but remember how I would’ve missed something so wonderful if I died. how I wouldn’t have seen the flashes of orange and gold and honey swirl and change in the sky. how the endless black turned to sunshine. how depression didn’t win.
coffee, the sunrise and the buildings awash in the light of a new morning all around me. how lovely is it to be alive. to experience all this busyness and splendour. how the clouds whisper good morning and the heavens themselves shine through each crack in the sky. how the sun calls my body to wake. how the birds tell me today is a new day and aren’t there just endless possibilities. the promise of a new sunrise makes me so glad I’m still alive.
things my abuser has tried to take away from me but failed:
1) Love in the form of sunflowers and surprise dinners and intertwined fingers. Romance and deep kisses, warm and safe. Dancing and giggling with him to Lily Allen. Kissing him and wondering what I did to deserve a body so soft, a love so raw and honest.
2) Love in the form of looking after this heavy body, even when it doesn’t look after me back. Face masks, showers and brushing through my matted hair, knotted like a unkempt garden. Dragging myself to therapy and loving all the charred parts of me. Loving me flawed, loving me regardless, loving me unconditionally, loving the me that survived.
3) Love in the form of a best friend. Nights spent sleeping next to her, nights spent crying into her lap, nights spent singing at the top of our lungs. She loves me silently, knows me when I’m down, knows me when I’m up. She doesn’t love me different, even with all the flaws.
4) Love in the form of family, with their misguided love and tentative support. Love in the form of my mother’s perfume and food she tells me to eat even when I feel I don’t deserve it. Weeks spent in hospital, bringing me my favourite food in the ward. Love in the form of her imperfection and how I wouldn’t change it for the world.
5) Love in the form of music, of dancing around in my room to the anthems of my youth. Of belting it out as loud as my lungs will allow. Songs I’ve cried to, laughed to, kissed to, lost to. Songs that held me up and gave a melody to all the hurt.
6) Love in the form of the poet in me. On my best days, she is all that I am. On my worst days, she is all that I want to be.
7) Love in the form of hope. A love that screams I made it. A love that believes it happened. Recovery has finally, finally begun to taste sweet.
“Nemesis inhabited a dark paradise of her own making. She never held back. I loved her for her frightful hatred, her frightful love. I admired her stunning passion for revenge; the mercilessness in her eyes.”
— Lola Ridge, from To the Many; Collected Poems of Lola Ridge; “Hellish,”
when richard siken said, “i hope it’s love. i’m trying really hard to make it love. i said no more severity”
you move & the wind moves with you, something honey, something bruised— in the way you chew on your bottom lip. nervous habit; delayed reaction. how in summer the world feels like a mirage of itself. hands that chain themselves to anything that refuses to let go: a leech, or brown muck. your teeth (grazing) the inside of my elbow. something damn frustrating about the way you give yourself up (to anything that’s foolish enough to take you) i.e the sea, the coast, where your shoulders meet, the leylines of your veins. & picture me humbly, please. picture me in evenings & earthly tones, only. & do not hold your breath when i go, slip. out the back door—silhouetted feline; precipitous, or better yet. picture (you), standing barefoot in the tall grass, picture the curve of your neck in malnourished light, & a puncture wound, in the now negative (space) you found me in: a flower bed emptied; the sun bleached out. — oh all i ever wanted / was a life in your shape // mitski
“You learn that the only way to get rock-star power as a girl is to be a groupie and bare your breasts and get chosen for the night. We learn that the only way to get anywhere is through men. And it’s a lie.”
— Kathleen Hanna, of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and The Julie Ruin
💓💓
• “If Moses had seen the way my friend’s face blushes when he’s drunk, and his beautiful curls and wonderful hands, he would not have written in his Torah: do not lie with a man” (rabbi yehuda al-harizi/judah ben solomon harizi, book of taḥkemoni iirc)
• “The number of hours we have together is actually not so large. Please linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving. Please forget your scarf in my life and come back later for it.” ( Mikko Harvey, from “For M,” Foundry)
• I want to stay on the back porch / while the world tilts / toward sleep, until what I love /misses me, and calls me in. (Dorianne Laux, from “On the Back Porch,” Only As the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems )
• “I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now.” (Tennessee Williams, from a letter to Donald Windham)
•I cannot write about Damascus, without the jasmine climbing on my fingers. I cannot say Her name, without my mouth getting overcrowded with apricot juice, blackberries and quince” (Nizar Qabbani, A Green Lantern on Damascus’ Door)
• “Put your heart in it” “My heart’s with you. I don’t have it anymore” (Dear Ex, 2018)
• "Why did you call me at the office today?” “I had nothing to do. I wanted to hear your voice.” (In The Mood For Love, 2000)
• I’ve dreamt about you nearly every night this week (Arctic Monkeys)
• This tweet
• Sharing a bubble bath on a rainy day, Santa Cruz, February 2015.
• Chungking Express (1994)
tag yourself: lana del rey edition
diet mountain dew: strawberry milkshakes, vintage diners, heart-shaped sunglasses and tennis skirts, party girl, glittery makeup, lip gloss, heartbreaker
national anthem: 60s soft glamour, expensive taste, gold and pearl jewelry, old hollywood black and white films, elegance, red lipstick
bel air: ethereal and angelic, picking wildflowers, butterflies and soft animals, believing in angels, pink blush, gentle and kind
ride: crushing on guys that ride motorcycles, 70s angel, free spirited, getting into trouble, independent, reckless, adventurous
brooklyn baby: slow dancing to rock music, low key nyc bars, kissing in leather jackets, cigarettes and jazz, smoky eyes, mysterious
florida kilos: tropical baby, mimosas, drawn to the ocean, sun-kissed skin, gold highlight & shimmer, short dresses, moonlight dancing
salvatore: would rather be in italy, grapes & oranges, sunshine, white sundresses, fresh cut market flowers, hydrated skin
honeymoon: romantic and sensual, easily broken heart, love letters, fields of roses and peonies, hazy afternoons in love, warm vanilla
JAMEELA JAMIL by Chantal Anderson for The New York Times (2019)
