To Recede

my dear,
we are all made of water.
it’s okay to rage. sometimes
it’s okay to rest. to recede.


// Sanober Khan

Thick Skins & Cheekbones

Millions of people
have decided not to be sensitive.
They have grown thick skins
around themselves
just to avoid being hurt by anybody.
But it is at great cost.
Nobody can hurt them,
but nobody can make them
happy either.




//Osho

La Correcta

There is, after all, a kind of happiness in unhappiness, if it’s the right unhappiness.


Jonathan Franzen // Freedom

One Day, Wake Up

Hello.


Eye contact, slight waves.
Small talk, playful banter.
First date, deeper conversations.
Laughter heard, smiles seen.
More dates, more shared.
Secrets divulged, dreams revealed.
Inside jokes, stolen kisses.
Wounded cries, painful struggles.
Open arms, life support.
Comfortable silence, starry nights.
Loving embraces, warm peace.

One day, wake up.

Uneasy feelings, disturbing quiet.
Hopelessly lost, pulling away.
Unrevealed moments, multiplying lies.
Emotionally numb, growing apart.
False accusations, pointless fights.
Jealousy heightens, piercing screams.
Sleep deprived, tears dried.
Angrily drained, unhappily exhausted.
Final straw, boxes packed.
Last words, turn around.
Part ways, eyes down.

Goodbye.


Isa Ampersand

Evelyn

Beauty is nothing, beauty won’t stay. You don’t know how lucky you are to be ugly, because if people like you, you know it’s for something else.


Charles Bukowski

Evelyn McHale

Throne // Thorns

So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

Two Kinds

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.


Tom Robbins // Still Life with Woodpecker

Pale

But luck will fail
and others will pale
and I’ll think of you.
And I’ll think I tried it
or I will deny it
but it’s not true.



Waxahatchee // Luminary Blake

Your life flashes before your eyes just before you die... it’s called Life.

- “What is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?”
Death thought about it.
- ”CATS, he said eventually. CATS ARE NICE."





Sir Terry Pratchett // 28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015

The sun goes down upon the Ankh,

And slowly, softly fades -

Across the Drum; the Royal Bank;

The River-Gate; the Shades.

A stony circle's closed to elves;

And here, where lines are blurred,

Between the stacks of books on shelves,

A quiet 'Ook' is heard.

A copper steps the city-street

On paths he's often passed;

The final march; the final beat;

The time to rest at last.

He gives his badge a final shine,

And sadly shakes his head -

While Granny lies beneath a sign

That says: 'I aten't dead.'

The Luggage shifts in sleep and dreams;

It's now. The time's at hand.

For where it's always night, it seems,

A timer clears of sand.

And so it is that Death arrives,

When all the time has gone...

But dreams endure, and hope survives,

And Discworld carries on.

Where could I rest but in your hurricane?

Erica Jong // Insomnia & Poetry

Ironicamente

Mirrors of Bergman from Criterion Collection on Vimeo.

You Crave Me

I am your morning cigarette.
You crave me,
you need me,
but someday soon you’ll realize
how toxic I am.
Someday soon
you will leave me.

Don’t you worry, darling.
I’ve already stained your lungs black
and I know you’ll feel
the ghost of me
on your fingers
forever.
In the mornings
before you fully wake
you’ll crave me
because old habits die hard
and you’ll never quite be able to
kill the desire for me.
When the gentle lips of your wife
bore you,
you will think of my
bitterness that somehow always
tastes sweeter than honey.

That one time you give in
and indulge
she will cry when
she smells me on you,
and never again
will you feel me
on your lips,
but I know you will always
feel me in
the darkness inside you.

Right now
I am your morning cigarette.
Soon I will be
the cancer in your lungs.

I wish I was sorry.

He estado aqui por un tiempo ya

A Restless Ocean Heart

Niles King

Colliding

Because I was the storm that he couldn’t weather.
Because I was the sea while he never strayed from shore.

We were the joining of the tempest and the calm.

The worst part not us colliding but that I, absorbed by him lost my vastness.

He never loved me and I-

I should’ve known better.

Unwise Love

It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.


Patrick Rothfuss // The Wise Man’s Fear

Bailo otra vez borracho,
desaprobando la dictadura del orgasmo,
soy el monstruo idiota que saliva delante de la carne,
y me encuentro de nuevo con este amuleto obscuro,
que despierta mis antiguas soledades,
la serie es triste,
amores fríos,
delicadezas manipuladoras,
prefiero abrazar el caos,
oler sexos descerebrados,
besar cuerpos ensangrentados,
por que dentro de estos cuerpos
todo es eterno mi amor.

In This Kind of Hope

…I love you, you of your feelings, you of your belief. You are the reason I wrote the poems. I didn’t even know you were there — but you were. "There ought to be something for someone in this kind of hope" I wrote…but I wasn’t sure. Now I am sure.



Anne Sexton // A Self-Portrait In Letters

Ella no imagina cuanto se le extraña

aqui en este cuarto con sus telarañas

paredes mal hechas focos que no encienden

hoy en esta tarde gente que no entiende

como es que su padre le dejo aqui sola

le dio por castigo aqui en esta alcoba

echó llave a la puerta y se marcho a embriagar

si saber que ya no volvería esta tarde, 

ni ninguna otra, ni en ningun momento,

todavía se escucha de noche el lamento, 

de la niña rubia, 

de los ojos claros, 

cuando una mañana hacía muchos años, 

su madre no estaba ya por ningun lado, 

solo en esa carta que le había dejado,

que se despedía pidiendo perdón,

callaba georgina frente a aquel cajón,

donde le tenía, 

donde le miraba, 

en la fotografía, 

la que le quedaba, 

se marchó su padre y ella arrodillada, 

todavía esa tarde, todavía esperaba, 

como paladeaba cada dulce nota, 

cuando se sentaba en la sillita rota, 

dulce melodía a la soledad, 

que solo sus versos puedo tararear.

Nadie la escucho, ni nadie dio consuelo,

cuando se pasó de la sillita al suelo, 

al caer la noche tomaba un rincón, 

hizo un santuario de esta habitación,

se cubre los ojos, se frota las manos,

diminutas tiemblan con sus siete años, 

como se resiste su cuerpo a morir, 

el invierno insiste, el corazón en latir, 

se cubre de sueños, cubre su cabeza,

unas veces canta, 

otras veces reza, 

¿donde habrá quedado la niña traviesa?

Not Sorry

I’ve tried forgetting you but that didn’t seem to work. So I’ve come to terms with who you are and who you’ve been. The only thing I wish you could see what you really could be. Your past doesn’t make you nor decide what you are. And I know you’re not sorry, but I forgive you.

Afterall

You gave me perspective on my shortcomings.
After all, they are the same as yours.

You taught me the meaning of irony.
You said you didn’t want to lose me;
and decided to leave.

Finally, because of you I realized
That I do the exact same thing.


—  k.a.t

Russian Ballerina

Sonrisas Traslucidas

I’ve contemplated over these few months if I ever truly loved you.
Maybe I loved an idea.
Maybe I loved a feeling.
If I say that you are just like everyone else,
then I too, will have conformed to my own accusations.
If I say that I hate you,
I’ll become wretched and bitter.
Honestly I thought you were like me,
And maybe we’re too alike.
Because I did love you. The person. The soul.
The soul that was beautiful, unsightly, warm, and scarred.
The soul like mine.

But the love we gave each other was damaged; I found both sadness and clarity in the midst of us.
You couldn’t open your arms, because like me, you fear being vulnerable more than being alone.
Like me, you wear translucent smiles to hide the monster beneath.
Yet we both know that behind this monster is a frightened child, needy and confused.

Maybe we were both just scared runaways with nowhere else to turn.

El Cartógrafo

I think about your thighs,' he wrote in the second letter,and the warm, moist smell of your skin in the morning, and the tiny eyelash in each corner of your eye that I always notice when you first roll over to look at me. I don’t know why you are better and more beautiful than anybody else. I don’t know why your body is something I can’t stop thinking about, why those little flaws and ridges on your back are lovely to me or why the pale soft bottoms of your New Jersey feet that always wore shoes are more poignant than any other feet, but they are. I thought I would have more time to chart your body, to map its poles, its contours and terrains, its inner regions, both temperate and torrid - a whole topography of skin and muscle and bone. I didn’t tell you, but I imagined a lifetime as your cartographer, years of exploration and discovery that would keep changing the look of my map. It would always need to be redrawn and reconfigured to keep up with you. I’m sure I’ve missed things..or forgotten them, because half the time I’ve been wandering around your body blind drunk with happiness. There are still places I haven’t seen.


Siri Hustvedt // What I Loved

Julie

Oh darling, your demons are so great,
Filled with guilt and disgust, and fueled with hate,
You say your mind is too full, but darling, how is your heart?
Can you fill in the holes to fix this crucial work of art?
You’re soul is consumed with the chase,
Oh darling, how these demons love an unfair race.

kalon

An ancient word, kalon is defined as inward beauty manifested on the outside. With Greek origins, both Plato and Aristotle recognized the beauty of the heart and the importance of being noble, even in aesthetics. Kalon supplements goodness and compliments beauty in an ethical sense. Greek philosophy draws an important distinction between kalon and what is “beautiful.” Note, kalon is solely applicable if an entity is deemed beautiful by demonstrating their worth and honorability, their projection becomes the ideal beauty, both physically and morally.

Pollo Limón Pimienta

Them

I don’t write anymore.
It’s not because I lack the motivation nor the inspiration, it’s because of them.

The people I want to write about, the ones who make emotions flow from every pore of my being, who leave me to drown in all of the words that flood my mind.

I could write epics about your smile or laugh but if I did, it would change everything.
Right now with all of my unsaid words, I am safe and protected; but if I unleash these gates and everything comes spilling out I won’t be able to run or hide from the truth anymore.
I’ll finally see how deeply you affect every bit of my soul, and then I won’t be able to escape.
Every time I write I’ll think of you.
But, you see, as long as I don’t write I’ll be safe from the madness and the pain that I’d feel when you leave.



M.F.

To me

To me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the weight of that wrongdoing – the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.


Veronica Roth // Allegiant

If You See Her Say Hello

Letras a Theo

In fact, I have no real friend but you, and when I am in low spirits, I always think of you. I only wish you were here, that we might again talk together about moving to the country.




Vincent van Gogh // 22 July 1883

Más Que Lobos

We wear clothes, and speak, and create civilizations, and believe we are more than wolves. But inside us there is a word we cannot pronounce and that is who we are.



Anthony Marra // A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

Lady Lazarus

Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.



Sylvia Plath // Lady Lazarus

This Just Isn't Happiness

57

Profano

There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other. There is nothing in literature but change and change is mockery. I’ll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it’ll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it.


William Carlos Williams // Kora in Hell: Improvistaions

Un Poco de Juego

It’s a pity that exciting things always stop happening when you’re not afraid of them anymore and would like to have a little fun.


HVM

Una Nota Continúa Sonando

   Yet I don't know what I grieve for: my wife? my husband? my children, or myself? I can't remember. Most dreams are forgotten, try as one will to remember. Yet later music strikes the note, and the harmonic rings along the mandolin strings of the mind, and we find tears in our eyes. Some note keeps playing that makes me want to cry; but what for? I am not certain.

  The yellow cat, who may have belonged to the couple that broke up, is dreaming.







Ursula K. Le Guin // Schrödinger's Cat

Cuando la Vacación Haya Terminado Para Bien

It will be strange
Knowing at last it couldn’t go on forever,
The certain voice telling us over and over
That nothing would change,

And remembering too,
Because by then it will all be done with, the way
Things were, and how we had wasted time as though
There was nothing to do,

When, in a flash
The weather turned, and the lofty air became
Unbearably heavy, the wind strikingly dumb
And our cities like ash,

And knowing also,
What we never suspected, that it was something like summer
At its most august except that the nights were warmer
And the clouds seemed to glow,

And even then,
Because we will not have changed much, wondering what
Will become of things, and who will be left to do it
All over again,

And somehow trying,
But still unable, to know just what it was
That went so completely wrong, or why it is
We are dying.

A la oscuridad, al campo abierto

Ciclos

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful: it is by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas… They ask the aid of wild passions… to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.

Emerson

Nacido

I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.


Humphrey Bogart

M.

M. had will and wit and probably too much empathy for others; she was quick in speech and she did not suffer fools. When you knew her she was unconditionally kind. But also, as our friend the Bishop Tom Shaw said at her memorial service, you had to be brave to get to know her.

She was style, and she was an old loneliness that nothing could quite wipe away; she was vastly knowledgeable about people, about books, about the mind’s emotions and the heart’s. She lived sometimes in a black box of memories and unanswerable questions, and then would come out and frolic — be feisty, and bold.

She had … an affair that struck deeply; I believe she loved totally and was loved totally. I know about it, and I am glad… This love, and the ensuing emptiness of its ending, changed her. Of such events we are always changed — not necessarily badly, but changed. Who doesn’t know this doesn’t know much.

Mary Oliver // “Attention without feeling … is only a report.”

Brain Pickings

Mala Magia

Corre con los Perseguidos

Otros Caminos

I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.



Patricia Highsmit // Born this day

Genesis

Bend Me

I will take fate by the throat; it will never bend me completely to its will. 

Ludwig van Beethoven

Sobre Mi Cabeza

Transfixion

I believe, in fact, that attempts to bring political protest together with “popular music”—that is, with entertainment music—are for the following reason doomed from the start.  The entire sphere of popular music, even there where it dresses itself up in modernist guise, is to such a degree inseparable from past temperament, from consumption, from the cross-eyed transfixion with amusement, that attempts to outfit it with a new function remain entirely superficial…

In the End, True Love Will Find You

Toda Mala Poesía es Sincera

Reviewing bad books, W. H. Auden once remarked, is bad for the character. Like all gifted moralists, Auden idealized despite himself, and he should have survived into the present age, wherein the new commissars tell us that reading good books is bad for the character, which I think is probably true. Reading the very best writers-let us say Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy-is not going to make us better citizens. Art is perfectly useless, according to the sublime Oscar Wilde, who was right about everything. He also told us that all bad poetry is sincere. Had I the power to do so, I would command that these words be engraved above every gate at every university, so that each student might ponder the splendor of the insight