dès vu

not come down to earth

"It seemed to us that his sadness was that of a boy, the voluptuous heedless melancholy of a boy who has still not come down to earth, and moves in the arid, solitary world of dreams."

Natalia Ginzburg; London (on Cesare Pavese)

all the bright places...

"I've been so worried about him, this boy I love, more worried than I knew until right this moment, staring up at the solar system. This is the single loveliest thing anyone's ever done for me. It's movie lovely. It feels somehow epic and fragile, and I want the night to last forever, and knowing that it can't already has me sad."

—All the Bright Places; Jennifer Niven

invincible summer

"In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."

—Albert Camus

little ode on st. anne's day

"You're growing up, and rain sort of remains, on the branches of a tree, that will someday rule the Earth. And that's good, that there's rain. It clears the month, of your sorry rainbow expressions, and clears the streets, of the silent armies, so we can dance."

—Little Ode On St. Anne's Day; Jim Carroll

thecolours (redux)

"Live with inspiration. Live for inspiration. Live inspired. Celebrate everything broken, everything bold. The rich black, where everything starts, eyes crawling outwards. The deepest blue of the milk carton, the old blanket where you no longer move, the floor that catches you. The vibrant purples of the beetle crushed underfoot. The violent reds of silence, the orange as days find themselves in dreams, the yellow in the moment that the trees follow. The green as the ocean falters, swells up, swims, drinking the sky. And the white movements of nothing, of never, of nowhere, of the question and the circle, the dance and the whisper. And you are new, an infant with broken bones, standing on the edge of the night, smiling."

—Ian William L.

on self judgment

"When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light, and so it turned out that way. And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, 'You're too this, or I'm too this.' That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are."

—On Self Judgment; Ram Dass

the diary of frida kahlo

“I used to think I was the strangest person in the world. But then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true, I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you.”

―The Diary of Frida Kahlo; Frida Kahlo

fall on your knees

"Dark and sweet, the elixir of love is in her mouth. The more I drink, the more I remember all the things we've never done. I was a ghost until I touched you. Never swallowed mortal food until I tasted you, never understood the spoken word until I found your tongue. I've been a sleep-walker, sad somnambula, hands outstretched to strike the solid thing that could awaken me to life at last. I have only ever stood here under this lamp, against your body. I've missed you all my life."

—Fall On Your Knees; Ann-Marie MacDonald

start home

"Moving into my own place to start home, I lost all the words in transit, postage stamps pig-stuck to ticking tongue. But my life has been some kind of finally kind. The while, the world has lately broken spider limbs and limbs and limbs. And living has felt brave-spinning, more than the press-play channel of words, of weights. But I am here. We are here. And your way can be quieter, still, stilling. Away from ink and information. Cut the writing from your lungs and breathe. Open your cracked spine and eyes and see."

—Ian William L.

I and you are

"But you learn to accept who and what you are. Most days. The days when you don't fly into the sun. The days when you don't spill and thaw and crash. I am brief and violent and true. I am always true. I am that blurry, breathy promise, cracked lips, long hopeful seizures before sunrise, sweat and tears and story. I am yours, and I am now. I am living and dying and always coming alive."

—Ian William L.

unprecedented

“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”

—The Fault In Our Stars; John Green

hope is the thing with feathers

"Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all."

—Hope Is The Thing With Feathers; Emily Dickinson

a woman of war

“As women, when we're children we're taught to enter the world with big hearts. Blooming hearts. Hearts bigger than our damn fists. We are taught to forgive—constantly—as opposed to what young boys are taught: revenge—to get "even". Our empathy is constantly made appeals to, often demanded for. If we refuse to show kindness, we are reprimanded. We are not good women if we do not crush our bones to make more space for the world, if we do not spread our entire skin over rocks for others to tread on, if we do not kill ourselves in every meaning of the word in the process of making it cozy for everyone else. It is the heat generated by the burning of our bodies with which the world keeps warm. We are taught to sacrifice so much for so little. This is the general principle all over the world.

By the time we are young women, we are tired. Most of us are drained. Some of us enter a lock of silence because of that lethargy. Some of us lash out. When I think of that big, blooming heart we once had, it looks shriveled and worn out now. When I was teaching, I had a young student named Mariam. She was only 11 years old. Some boy pushed her around in class, called her names, broke her spirit for the day. We were sitting under a chestnut tree on a field trip and she asked me if a boy ever hurt me. I told her many did and I destroyed them one by one. I think that’s the first time she ever heard the word "destroyed". We rarely teach our girls to fight back for the right reasons.

Take up more space as a woman. Take up more time. Take your time. You are taught to hide, censor, move about without messing up decorum for a man's comfort. Whether it's said or not, you’re taught balance. Forget that. Displease. Disappoint. Destroy. Be loud, be righteous, be messy. Mess up and it's fine—you are learning to unlearn. Do not see yourself like glass. Like you could get dirty and clean. You are flesh. You are not constant. You change. Society teaches women to maintain balance and that robs us of our volatility. Our mercurial hearts. Calm and chaos. Love only when needed; preserve otherwise.

Do not be a moth near the light; be the light itself. Do not let a man’s ocean-big ego swallow you up. Know what you want. Ask yourself first. Decide your own pace. Decide your own path. Be cruel when needed. Be gentle only when needed. Collapse and then re-construct. When someone says you are being obscene, say yes I am. When they say you are being wrong, say yes I am. When they say you are being selfish, say yes I am. Why shouldn't I be? How do you expect a woman to stand on her two feet if you keep striking her at the ankles.

There are multiple lessons we must teach our young girls so that they render themselves their own pillars instead of keeping male approval as the focal point of their lives. It is so important to state your feelings of inconvenience as a woman. We are instructed to tailor ourselves and our discomfort, constantly told that we are "whining" and "nagging" and "complaining too much". That kind of silence is horribly violent, that kind of insistence upon uniformly nodding in agreement to your own despair, and smiling emptily so no man is ever uncomfortable around us. Male-entitlement dictates a woman's silence. If we could see the mimetic model of the erasure of a woman's voice, it would be an incredibly bloody sight.

On a breezy July night, my mother and I were sleeping under the open sky. Before dozing off, I told her that I think there is a special place in heaven where all wounded women bury their broken hearts and their hearts grow into trees that only give fruit to the good and poison to the bad. She smiled and said Ameen. Then she closed her eyes.”

—A Woman of War; Mehreen Kasana

us and you and I city breathing

"I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning, or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday, two a.m. I am gunshots muffled by a few city blocks. I am a broken window during February. My bones crack on a nightly basis. I fall from elegance with a dull thud, and I apologise for my awkward sadness. I sometimes believe that I don't belong around people. That I belong to all the leap days that didn't happen. The way light and darkness mix under my skin has become a storm. You don't see the lightning, but you hear the echoes."

—unattributed

foreign

"And she tucked herself away in a corner, quiet and foreign to the crowd around her, and all that kept racing through my head is that the best kind of beauty is the kind that is mostly ignored."

—Christopher Poindexter

tender is the night

"I don't ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside of me there will always be the person I am tonight."

—Tender Is The Night; F. Scott Fitzgerald

round, hopeful poem

"I'll match your

cold, lonely parts

with my honest skin

I can remind you."

—Round, Hopeful Poem; Reba Overkill

the only

"Every time you try to break us down, you only galvanize. Force us to the wall, to the cage, and we only live loudest. We won't turn to hate—only hope."

—Ian William L.

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