simplelvl

[simplelvl]

I freaking love carrot soup

[simplelvl]

One year without her ❤️😔

[simplelvl]

i’m internshipping at a psychiatric ward (third week), and it’s hands down the hardest int-ship I’ve ever had. I’m trying to carry everyone’s suffering which in itself is already heavy. I’ve never poured so much of myself into something as I am doing now, trying to make a difference only to feel 51% of the time that I can’t. Today for the first time I watched someone get strapped against their will to a bed to be rolled down to the electric shock modulation. This girl cried and reached for my hand. The desperation and hopelessness I felt from her was so overwhelming. It was actually one of the hardest things I’ve seen. She later came and gave me her diary to read. And the diary as well was a black hole of suffering. I tried to decorate it with positivity, give her my words of affirmation, try to make her see that she matters. Now the staff there are saying ”if she gets too attached to only you, you can’t care for her anymore”. I’m actually not feeling good after this day. I want to never go back to that place, and also afraid of missing any days, or come in to ”work” and hear bad news. Horrible. Now I understand why everyone working there are so stone cold and unempathic.

[simplelvl]

At the gym 6:30. What’s your excuse? 🥰

[simplelvl]

what I take away from ’The picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde.

Dorian Gray is praised by his looks. It’s ALL people EVER talk about wherever he goes and the only reason they love and adore him. He doesn’t have to do anything else than look really pretty. He is, at first, oblivious that the reason people love him is for his looks. This changes one day when he visits his painter-friend Basil to sit for his portrait. Basil’s friend lord Henry is present, and he speaks to Dorian about beauty and youth. The revelation of what a huge part beauty and youth plays in society is sealed when Dorian sees the beautiful portrait Basil has painted of him. In a moment of distress and devastation, he makes a prayer: he wishes to always remain young and beautiful, and to let the portrait carry his sins and signs of aging.

oh, boy, can I relate. Where do I even start? I’ve always found myself in the position to where people seem to adore me only for my looks, but on the contrary to Dorian, I’ve always fought to change that. Show more personality, bring out my other qualities, only for people to say ”you know they only like you for your looks, right?” It’s a fear one has, that one has nothing else to offer than the exterior. But Dorian lets this reach his vanity and pride, thus becoming his only defining character trait. And if hou have NOTHING ELSE to offer than your looks, then of course you hang on to that with all of you. You even sell your soul, as Dorian did.

See, Dorian truly taints and gives away his soul. He does horrible things: corrupts, hurts, and even worse. He feels no remorse, no shame, unless it’s directly related to him and his vanity. The portrait, which represents his soul and who he is inside, turns uglier and viler with each passing day, but all the people around Dorian adore him anyway. This is, of course, because they can’t or won’t see past his good looks and judge him on that only, not seeing what he looks like inside. So he pushes the limit, does all kinds of horrible and wretched things, because he gets away with it thanks to his looks.

Although Dorian is blessed to stay forever young and beautiful, his life is rather empty and sad. What is the point of youth and beauty, if all you have to look back at are the shadows or your sins? if you have no one to love, no one who truly knows or cares to know the real you, no real friends and no goodness in your life?

[simplelvl]

i don’t know how Mr Wilde can bore me to death while simultaneously resonate with me …. Concept 4/5, execution 2/5

[simplelvl]

I dreamed I was on an island doing a part-time job over the summer. Apart from the workers on that island, it was inhibited by a tribe. Me and the girls my age would wander the beach when there was nothing else to do. The ocean caught speed, the waves grew bigher and closer until they started crashing over the stoney mountain wall and chasing us as we ran closer to the forest. One of the girls called for a tsunami, but it never got to that. Another said it was the sea monster awakening, but there was none to be seen. Instead, the waves kept themselves speedy enough to lick at our skin and sized enough to swallow us into them.

there, underwater, I could see what a sea creature could see. At first, I only saw bones. Then I saw skin. Faded, fading, and almost complete skin. Children, sewn together in their middle, and to the hands of each other. The look of horror as a last engravement on their no longer innocent faces. Victims, is what they were.

I swam to the top, and the ocean helped spit me out. My body was quivering with the cold and the fear as I returned to the office. I wanted to tell someone of what I had seen, but when I rounded the back, out on the ocean in the black night, lit up by a yellow light, lay a grown man with ginger beard on a floatie, his arms wrapped around a little boy. The boy with his dark features belonged to the tribe, but the man was cuddling him as if it was his possession.

It made me sick. I backed into the house and went to find my supervisor to tell her. But when she shrugged her shoulders, and said ’ah, yeah, they cuddle’, I understood I stood alone on my side. And so I had to nod and pretend I accepted it.

The next day I canoed on the waters. It was perfectly still, but leading. The day was gray, and cold. On the bridge sat one of the older boys, with his long black hair and straw hat, on a little straw swing. He was wearing bamboo and teeth around his neck, and something else that made a rattling sound when he moved. I rode the little boat closer, and could see the boy’s pants were bloodied on the back.

As I got off the little boat and hopped onto the bridge, I wanted to ask him what had happened, and who had done it. But the white men felt nearby. Even the trees seemed to have ears that belonged to the enemy. Every time the boy moved, it gave away a piece of us. I asked him to tell me something true, but what he did was pull at a string from his mouth, and he pulled it from his throat until he, with a gagging sound, pulled out a hand from his throat. I knew then they’d managed to threaten him into silence. And then, with me as a witness, one of the white men came down to the bridge with feigned friendliness, putting his hands on either side of his shoulders and asking him to ’come help Henry.’ I watched helplessly as the boy was lead away.

At dusk, I found myself on the edge of the ocean again, whispering my secrets down the surface, filling it with tales I hoped terrible enough to reach beneath the surface. But nothing happened, except for my own guilt bouncing back from the surface to me, washing over me harder and colder than any wave could.

I will save the children, I thought. I did not know how. I went back to the workers’ lodging to find someone I could trust. But how would I know who to trust? It could be a mere façade. They could pretend to be on my side, only to stop me. Even the friendliest face could hide the devil’s accomplice. The best thing I could do, was beat them at their own game. And so, I pretended to diligently be one of them, hinting I knew about their occupation, and agreeing with it.

When these people got comfortable, they got sloppy. It was one of those black nights that I was led to them. Cooped up in a shed, three of them, two boys and a girl. They were afraid of me, I could tell. In that silent, stiff matter, where they did not make efforts to disobey or reject my reaching hand, but also not daring to look the monster in the eye. ’I’m not the monster,’ I wanted to say, but my throat was swollen with disbelief, for I could see myself through the eyes of these children. I reckoned it was a phrase they’d heard before, from the lips of these white beasts.

I led them to the boat. That was my plan. To put us there and canoe as far away as we could, until we reached the coastal barrier tp safety, if there was such thing as safety. As I was untying the rope of the boat, the ruckus began. The black windows lit up, the silence cut with shrieks and mayday. Our company of four surrounded. I clutched to the little fingers, gaining their little trust when they finally saw the opposing team, and so they clutched back at me. Ripped at me, reached me with their small voices, like soft meows in my ear, climbing on me as frightened squirrels.

I held one of the boys in my arms, the girl clutching my waist as she peeked out from behind me, and the boy holding on to my free hand. I realized there is no escape, and no mercy other than death. ’Trust me,’ I lied to them. ’Close your eyes and hold on to each other.’

They did as I said for in those last minutes of their life, I was their saviour, and in our imagination we were saved. It was the last kindness I could offer them, as I held on to them and plunged us into the deep waters. I watched the bubbles slowly cease, the look of horror forever frozen on the children’s faces, the kind of picture that didn’t go away even when you closed your eyes and welcomed death.

When I awokened, I was still underwater, but as I inhaled my lungs did not fill. As I looked around, algea had grown around my legs and wrists, my hair becoming the same consistency as wet leaf. I looked beside me and saw them. The little ones’ clothes had ripped and I could see them, laying beside each other, their hands molten together, the stitches of their bodies reminding me of what I’d seen all that time ago. It was I, the sea creature, reliving my nightmares on the bottom of the ocean. I cried out in terror, and I screamed out in rage.

up there, on the surface, I could see the floatie. I remembered the black night with the yellow light, knew there was sinning onboard; one demon and one innocent. I thought to myself ’I’m not letting you go this time’, and as my heart filled itself with rage and yearn for revenge, I swam to the top until the white monster’s leg was in reach. With one swift movement, I dragged him under, and tore him apart, limb for limb, as his screams were silenced in the water. As I looked up, the child was staring down at me, and I gave him a smile before disappearing back to the bottom, to my sleeping children, making them dresses out of algea to protect their bodies and taking my place as the mythical sea creature and guardian of the ocean.

So yeah. That is what my fucked up head shows me when I’m sleeping. I woke up in the middle of it all and had to turn on my night light because I was so disturbed and horrified.

[simplelvl]

the beautiful writing and storytelling alone deserves all the points, but the story itself was a bit too much for me. 3.5/5

[simplelvl]

This book is like a compilation of poems

[simplelvl]

what a monotone experience. i’m sure glad it’s over. 2/5

[simplelvl]

my ex’s best friend was in the same metro as me and asked me to come to a halloween party.

first of all, i don’t drink

second of all … i don’t think i can hang with my ex’s friends … sorry. It’s a matter of principle.

Third … i don’t have the time, haha

[simplelvl]

I’m too busy to breathe, too stressed to have an appetite. I lost all the weight I’d put on in the summer. I had no days off last week, and no days off this week 👏🏼🥰

le uncooked noodle:

[simplelvl]

What a boringass book. 2/5.

[simplelvl]

Finished this book. Ugh. What a great book. I loved it. Satisfying from start to finish. Usually, endings are so disappointing, but this one was so well-written. I read the ending twice. 4.5/5.

[simplelvl]

swimming after sunset 🌅