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adapembroke · 4 years ago

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Icelandic Sagas and Norse Culture: A Conversation with Jared Juckiewicz

There are some people who are so interesting and knowledgeable about a fascinating subject that I wish it was culturally acceptable to hand them a lectern and microphone in social settings and ask them to give an impromptu lecture. My friend Jared Juckiewicz is one of those people.

Jared’s knowledge of Norse history and culture is legendary in our circle, and it was a privilege to have the opportunity to chat with him about the Icelandic Sagas, Jared's class on the Sagas for Nameless Academy, and why you shouldn't carry a magical banner with a raven on it into battle if you value your life.

Ada: For those who are new to the subject, what are the Sagas?

Jared: So Merriam-Webster defines a saga as “a prose narrative recorded in Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries of historic or legendary figures and events of the heroic age of Norway and Iceland” which is actually bang on for my definition of the historical Icelandic sagas. (I’d class things like Beowulf and the Nibelungenlied as sagas as well, but epic sagas rather than historical ones.) Most of them are attributed to one writer, an Icelandic gentleman by the name of Snorri Sturlisson, who took advantage of his position in the Icelandic Diocese to record as much of Iceland’s Oral History as he could. Each one is basically the history of one of the important families in Iceland at the time, typically going back a generation or two or three before the settlement of Iceland.

Ada: I’m surprised that the dictionary defines “saga” as Icelandic specifically. I always thought “saga” was a synonym for “very long poem.” I’m learning something already!

Was there something about the settlement of Iceland that inspired the Icelanders to write down all of these stories, or is it more that more of the oral tradition survived than it otherwise would have because of Snorri?

Jared: I mean, I would definitely quibble with the definition being specific to Iceland myself. But then again, I don’t work for Merriam-Webster, so you know. Not my say.

So, it’s definitely a case that more of the oral tradition survived thanks to Snorri than it otherwise would have. Admittedly, he did impart a lot of his biases to them, given that he was Christian, in fact being heavily involved in Iceland’s organised Church, and a lot of his subject matter predates the Christianisation of Iceland. But it’s less of an issue in the historical sagas than in things like the Eddas. I suspect a part of his motivation is that the 13th Century was around the time we start to see the emergence of true national identities in northern europe, and a recorded history tends to be a large part of those.

Ada: What sorts of challenges do readers have to be aware of accounting for Snorri’s biases, and why are those biases less of an issue with the sagas?

Jared: So the sagas are more of a historical account than the Eddas, which are a record of the icelandic forms of Norse myth. Being a historical account, there’s less room for interpretation, whereas most scholars agree that Snorris Eddas were revised, by him, to make them more palatable to the Church. So when reading the Eddas, it helps to be aware that the person recording them was a Christian, had been raised Christian, and so had certain views regarding morality and cosmology that may have (Read almost certainly did) differ significantly from how the Norse viewed things. Less of an issue with the historical sagas because history is less open to interpretation. His biases may have coloured his description of people’s motivations, but the events are likely accurate, as are the depictions of things like cultural mores and the like.

Ada: What is your story with the sagas? How did you get interested, and what fascinates you about them?

Jared: So, I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with history. When I was at University, a friend dragged me along to a meeting of what became our local Historical Reenactment Society by dint of showing up to class with a wooden shield on his arm and a wooden sword in his belt.

Ada: Best. Marketing. Ever.

Jared: I was hooked. Still am. Anyway, I’m like, 5’7” and am lucky if I weigh more than 120lbs. To be effective on the field of battle, I have to go for a mix of speed, savagery and complete disregard for my own personal safety. Four years of getting referred to as ‘The littlest Berserker that could’ lead to finding out everything I could about said Berserkers, which lead to the Icelandic sagas. They’re great stories. Dry reads, cause, you know, the 13th Century wasn’t known for popular fiction. But they’re very… human. Stories. Like you read them and it’s like “I can understand why that person would respond that way.” The culture is at enough of a remove that it feels fantastical, but because we’re talking about real people, and their emotions and their triumphs and their failings, it’s easy to emphasize with them, I find.

Ada: How did you get from berserkers to the sagas?

Jared: There are a number of sagas where major characters are berserkers, or berserkers are mentioned. Viga-Glums Saga mentions a Berserker who made a living challenging farmers to Holmgangr (a sort of duel where the victor took the losers property. Given they were generally to the death, the loser didn’t tend to object). The eponymous Egil Skallagrimsson is also described as being a Berserker in some translations. As well as a Skald (poet), Sorceror, and what passed for Nobility in his period of Iceland. Part of it is also a dearth of other sources. You have some mention in the Anglo-Saxon chronicle and in similar Scots and Irish records from the time, but they mostly complain about the Norse being evil pagans come to destroy the Christians (When they aren’t complaining that the Vikings only bathe so they can get laid). There’s Adam of Bremen, but he didn’t talk much about the military side of things, which is where berserkers come in, and there’s Ibn Fadhlan, but until recently translations of his manuscripts were a bugger to get a hold of.

Ada: What is it about the sagas that feels fantastical to you?

Jared: Everything is so much… MORE. If that makes sense? Like, there’s an account of a trial in Njall’s Saga where the defense witness perjures himself by libeling one of the victims, and the prosecuting attorney (Who happened to be related to said victim. No conflict of interest, it’s how things were done at the time) responded by impaling the witness, fatally, with a spear throw. And got away with it. They solve their disputes, when talk fails, with broadswords and battle axes.

Ada: It’s like they actually do the things we’re all imagining doing when someone does something that’s completely out of line.

Jared: Certainly the things I imagine doing. Although, I now realise I could explain it easier. Tolkien was a scholar of the Norse Sagas, and drew heavily on some of Snorri’s other works (particularly the Eddas) for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. So part of why they feel fantastical is that the definitive work for High Fantasy is based on them.

Ada: Other than weapons, what Tolkienesque things can readers find in the sagas?

Jared: So the sagas are maybe less of an influence on his works than the Eddas, but he drew heavily on the mythology, and there are bits where that crops up in the sagas. There are also references to things like rune-carving as a means of casting spells, and at least one instance of a magic banner. Bear in mind that this was back when magic was an accepted fact of life (in fact at the time, the Catholic Church was heavily involved in magical research. There are guides on things like alchemy and necromancy and rune magic that were written in monasteries at the time). Poetry, I suppose. The Norse were big on poetry.

Ada: I would love to dive into the intersection between history and mythology with you, but I’ll restrain myself. What’s an example of the intersection of history and myth in the sagas?

Jared: The above mentioned magic banner, actually. It crops up in Njall’s Saga and the Orkneyinga Saga, and belonged to the Jarl of Orkney. Jarl Sigurd of Orkney, to be precise. It was a Raven Banner, sewn by his mother, who was reputed to be a Volva, which was a Norse term for a female magic practitioner, particularly one who practiced fibre magics. It was, reputedly, enchanted to draw the attention of Odin and his aid, and whatever army carried it into battle would have victory, but the bearer of the banner would be slain. Well, the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 was particularly hard fought, and after he’d gone through several standard-bearers, none of Sigurd’s companions was willing to pick it up. He informed them that by spurning Odin’s gift, the battle was lost, tied it round his waist like a belt, and led his final charge. Sigurd’s side lost the battle, and the few of his immediate companions were hunted down shortly thereafter by Kari Solmundsson (admittedly for unrelated reasons).

Ada: One of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation with you is because you are going to be teaching a class on the sagas at the Nameless Academy in February.

I’m really excited to have the chance to sit in on your class because you are a person who I regularly want to hand a lectern and microphone because you have so much knowledge and so many stories.

What is this class, and what will you be teaching?

Jared: So the class is called Íslendingasögur 101: Norse Polytheism and Medieval Culture in Icelandic Sagas.It’s a mouthful I know. Really, it’s just an introduction to pre-Christian Iceland. There’s a lot of misinformation floating about regarding the Norse. I’m not going to name any names. *Cough* Wagner *Cough* Victorian England *Cough*

Ahem. Don’t worry, it’s not Covid, I promise.

But no, there’s a lot of misinformation about the Norse out there, and it’s only in the past five or six decades that we’ve started to undo that. The thing is, the corrections started in Academia, and it took three or four decades before accurate information began to be easily available to the general public. So while we’re doing away with the popular image in peoples heads of the ravening barbarian with the horned helmet, it’s slow going.

I’m hoping in future semesters to do guided self-study of some of the Icelandic studies, but because I do not want to spend all my time correcting common misconceptions, I decided to teach this first, so that anyone looking into the sagas themselves, either under the aegis of the Nameless Academy, or by themselves, is doing so with at least a basic understanding of the culture those sagas concern.

Ada: Other than the horned helmet ridiculousness, what is a common misconception that tends to trip up newbies to the sagas?

Law. The Norse had the greatest respect for their Laws, even if they didn’t always follow them. Because of how sparsely settled Iceland was, and given the lack of urbanisation, they didn’t have permanent courthouses like you find nowadays. Instead they all met up at regular intervals at what was known as a ‘Thing’. No that is not a typo, it was actually called a Thing. The big one in Iceland was held at Thingvellir or “Place of the Thing”. “Field of the Thing”? I do not (yet) speak Old Norse and I’ve seen multiple translations. It was sort of a combination of court and county fair, that was opened by a member of the community, the Lawspeaker, reciting a portion of the legal code to all assembled. It was a great honour to be chosen as the Lawspeaker, even if it also meant moderating all the suits.

One of the most famous Sagas (and my personal favourite) actually focuses heavily on the Laws and Legal matters. In fact, more attention is paid in most sagas to legal nitty-gritty than to pitched battles.

Ada: Other than an interest in history, why might people want to take your class?

Jared: Perspective. People don’t change, even if the places and laws and the cultures do. It’s also a conversation piece. I mean, you can back me up on this. I can relate almost anything to the Sagas.

Ada: That is absolutely true. I feel sometimes when you're talking like they're stories that are happening now.

If people wanted to read the Sagas, where do you suggest they start?

Jared: So, if you prefer Dead Tree Editions, most of my hardcopies were released by either Penguin Classics or Oxford University Press. They tend to be older translations, but still very good, and I’ve never had a problem finding them at good second-hand bookstores or my local library. Well. Never had a major problem. And in this time of Covid, if you don’t want to go out or have someone bring a copy to your door. 13th Century is pretty much Public Domain now, so there are a few of the sagas available as ebooks through Project Gutenberg. Alternately, there’s an Icelandic Non-Profit that hosts a website, sagadb.org which hosts all the extant Icelandic sagas in a variety of languages and formats (although not all of them are available in English). If I do manage to lead some guided self-study it’s likely to be the SagaDB translations I use. Amongst other things, they’re free.

Ada: Thank you so much for talking with me, Jared.

How can people who are interested in learning more about you and your class find you?

Jared: So I’m on Tumblr. At present I’m A-Krogan-Skald-And-Bearsark, and if that changes, only the article and the first identifier will change. Admittedly, I don’t curate my Tumblr AT ALL. So there’s a bit of everything on it.

I’m also on Discord, and you can reach me there on the Nameless Academy server as Jared, or on Polytheists or Diviners Anonymous as JehanCriec. Mind you, my internet access can be sporadic, so if you don’t hear back from me right away, don’t take it as a slight, I’m just on a boat and will respond as soon as I get a chance.

#norse #norse pagan #witchblr

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lovelytsumu · 4 years ago

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‧₊˚✧ ཻུ۪۪ ᵕ̈ ART

chapter 1 — “drawings„

sakusa kiyoomi x reader | mlist

is having a soulmate necessary? — a bunch of connected stories.

Soulmate AU; if you write something on your skin it will appear on your soulmate skin too.

wc: 1,5k | no trigger warning.

Everyone has a soulmate, everyone deserves love, also if they don’t believe it. Sooner or later, in your sixteenth year of life, if you wrote something on your skin, it would show on your soulmate’s skin, same writing, same place.

Sakusa had never cared about soulmates, probably because a relationship wasn’t one of his priorities. He also thought no one could love him, mainly for his strange, cold and blunt personality, for his germaphobic attitude, and he thought girls liked to go out in crowded places with their boyfriends. He just didn’t care, and he hoped to have a soulmate who didn’t care either.

It happened all of a sudden, while he was writing on his notebook, he saw something appearing on his left wrist: “;”, a semicolon. At first, he thought his pen was bleeding a little ink, but when he tried to rub on it, nothing changed. It was like tattooed, and he couldn’t do anything. A couple of minutes after he realised he had a soulmate. Well, another problem added to his germophobia and mysophobia. Instead of panicking for the small amount of black colour on his wrist, he just pulled on his sleeve to cover it.

He wanted to keep it a secret, at least for now.

Some days have passed since the semicolon, and everytime it got erased, maybe from a shower or a bath, his soulmate was quick to draw it again. For him, if it was just that small symbol, it was okay. “Sakusa, what’s that flower on your arm?” Komori, during the whole practice his eyes were glued to his friend’s forearm, noticing that something was appearing out of the blue. “What?” he was focused on spiking the balls, that he didn’t saw the outline of a flower which started to mark his skin. “Guys! Our ace as a soulmate! And she’s also pretty talented!” the libero said to all his teammates, who got near Sakusa to admire the beautiful drawing on his arm. “Stop, I don’t like having you squished around me like this” he said, trying to move away from the small crowd composed of his teammates.

When Itachiyama’s ace got back to the locker room, he noticed that the drawing on his arm was a sunflower, and now there were also some leaves around it. The outline was perfect, without any kind of mistake or imprecision. But why? Why draw something so big and beautiful which can be easily erased with water and soap? Maybe, his soulmate did it just to annoy him, or because she didn’t care about him. He hoped it was the second.

Practice ended, and he was free to go back home, but something on his way caught his interest. A faint light coming from the art room. Minding other people’s businesses wasn’t his favourite activity, and he didn’t want to annoy who was inside. He stood near the door, and with surprise, a [h/c] hair coloured girl was standing near a canvas, and she was looking for more paint. Then, he looked at the unfinished drawing, representing a sunflower, very very similar to the one on his arm.

He was just watching her looking for some spare paint around the class. Carefully, without wasting a single drop, the girl put the colours on her palette, now looking for an appropriate brush to start her piece. The [h/c] student began painting with a yellow brush stroke, the firm hold of the brush was in contrast with the delicate move. He couldn’t see her face, but he bet it was plain, paying attention to all the small details, careful of what she was doing.

To almost everyone, that movement may seem normal, but there was something more. Her precision, her gentle brush stroke, her concentration. It was almost unnatural. She was in her personal world, a free, peaceful, imaginary space. When you do something you deeply love, it’s like this, reading, playing an instrument, playing your favourite sport... also if you don’t notice it.

While Sakusa was thinking if she really was his soulmate, he didn’t pay attention to the painting, where the petals of the sunflower were almost finished. Yellow, mixed with a bit of orange. Then, she moved on, and picked a dark brown bottle of paint. The girl started placing some dots in the center of the sunflower.

The artist felt eyes on her, but she didn’t care. Art is made to be seen and appreciated, is made to feeling part of it, is made to reveal your own feelings. Writing a story, composing a poem, singing a song, painting a drawing... are just a few of the ways art can express itself. It’s something magical, or at least, she would describe it like that.

“You know, drawing is a really good activity to reduce anxiety and sadness” she said without turning, knowing someone was leaning on the doorframe. Sakusa stayed still and didn’t answer back. “It also helps your concentration and creativity. Someone thought about how our psychic state reverses itself on the paper which we are drawing on. It sounds impossible, but it’s true.”

— 🌻 — some time after

Sakusa was staring to the ceiling of his room, laying on the bed. He was still thinking about the words he had heard before, also if he didn’t know that girl, the one in the art room, he couldn’t do anything besides being impressed. Her technique, her delicate touch, her thoughts.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but the drawings, the sunflowers... was her his soulmate? Was it that easy find the person who the fate decided to pair you with? Strange. It was common to hear people who had to do kilometres and kilometres before finding their half. Maybe he got lucky.

He didn’t want a relationship, he didn’t define himself as someone who desperately needed a girlfriend, but, for the first time, he had to think again about that idea. Sakusa has always liked who put a lot of effort in what they were doing, as for the girl at school, or him when he was playing volleyball.

He rolled up his sleeves, to see if the flowers were still there. Luckily, everything was like that afternoon: the big sunflower on his arm and the small semicolon on his wrist. He didn’t scream of joy when he thought about his first “move”, because it meant ruin his skin with a pen or marker.

A little arrow pointing at the flower, and “I like this. You’re good at it.” without mentioning who he was. Also his soulmate started drawing on his skin out of the blue, so why couldn’t he write on his own arm? Then, he was just staring at the small comment, waiting for an answer, that could never be written.

Meanwhile, ___ was taking off her clothes to have a shower. The hot water was already running, but before opening the shower glass door, she paused in front of the mirror, looking at her arm. Her soulmate had left a comment near her drawing.

“I like this. You’re good at it”. She couldn’t do anything than smile. She had just received a positive opinion on her sunflower. For someone who doesn’t care about art, or just draw because they have nothing to do, that may sound as nothing special, but for her it was different.

It hasn’t been a lot of time since she had started painting again, and receiving a compliment on one of her favourite subjects made her heart flutter, especially because that comment was from who the fate tied her together with. Also if she didn’t want to be in a relationship, or at least, at the moment she couldn’t be the best girlfriend ever, as she said.

It was the starting of a new era of her life, after a lot of sadness and tears, she was finally standing up again, and maybe, this time she wasn’t alone. She got under the shower, and watched silently how the ink on her arm was already smudging down her arm. “I want to draw it again”.

After she came out of the bathroom, she quickly drew the semicolon on her wrist, and then, a smaller sunflower on her forearm. This time she added a phrase under it. “Thanks for the compliment, I’ve read it just before showering. I hope you won’t hate me for this, but at the moment I don’t feel like meeting you or having a relationship” she cursed at herself for the last sentence, but some words were already appearing again on her skin.

“Don’t worry. I am not the type of guy who wants a relationship for now.” somehow, both Kiyoomi and ___ felt relieved when they read each other’s words.

Maybe their story wasn’t meant to be as one of the thousands clichè love movies.

[to be continued]

🌻 Taglist: @itsmattsunshinehere

#sakusa kiyoomi #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #hq imagines #haikyuuwritersnet #hq x reader #hq sakusa #kiyoomi sakusa #haikyuu sakusa #haikyuu!!#kiyoomi sakusa x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #hq fanfic

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chocolate-parfait · 4 years ago

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Matchup for @bigwintter

bigwintter , dear, tumbrl ate your ask away and I can't seem to be able to tag you for whatever reason. I hope you'll be able to see this nonetheless!

I match you up with... William!

You two are the embodiment of the dark academia aesthetic tbh✨

During your first encounter, you mostly keep to yourself, but Will can tell that you two are, in a way, similar to each other. It all starts with casual and sporadic encounters where the general ambiance is “Oh God, I’m talking to THE William Shakespeare”, but all that quickly dissolves through time. The writer instantly takes a liking to you, a normal reaction to your genuine love for literature, but the more he talks to you, the more he realizes there’s something more to it.

Your aura kinda works like a magnet. It’s in your little gestures, the way you carry yourself, completely at ease despite a 200 years-wide gap between your time and your new surroundings. Most of all, he’s genuinely amazed each time you give him deep and psychological insight about a recently published novel or sometimes even a piece he has written himself. Sometimes you stumble a bit and don’t exactly know how to convey your thoughts in a precise way, but this makes him all the more curious(he finds it very cute, actually). He truly wonders how come you’re able to give a fascinatingly knowledgeable answer to whatever topic the two of you are discussing, and this ignites an always increasingly burning fire deep inside of him.

He tries (unless SOMEONE cough Theo cough forcefully kicks him out) to visit the mansion more often, other times he invites you over to his residence to have a nice chat over some tea. If you feel like it, he even plans some rendezvous in the city to show you around. It’s very nice of him and he acts like a total gentleman! But... some problems may arise when he starts showing his overly possessive side.

Since you know your fair share of information when it comes to psychology and all that may come in handy to diagnose someone with being a yandere (and whatever type of mental illness Shakespeare has), you notice the signs early on, so at least you’re not completely caught off guard. As to how to act next... well, that’s pretty much up to you. You can ask Comte for protection for the rest of the month and then go back home, or you can try and talk it out with him if you prefer.

Since this is a matchup, let’s pretend you chose to stay in the past and confront him about it. You go to his house and he’s acting like usual, although there’s a glint in his eyes that sends a shiver down your spine. When you finally bring up his weird behaviors a switch in his mind flips the other way. It’s a really intense moment because as he’s explaining all the reasons why he deemed it necessary to “protect” you from others, he suddenly realizes that at the root of the whole problem there’s only his genuine affection towards you. But would he act the same way with Vincent? No, of course not. Then, there must be something else to his feelings, right? And the word he had written so many times, the main theme of most of his stories, comes crashing down on him. Love.

He doesn’t outright say it, but it’s subtle and you already know about it. Once more, you can decide whether to correspond to his feelings right away or wait a little longer, just know that you’ll be in for a lot of therapy sessions. This man needs three things: affection, a LOT of reassurance, and someone to show him how healthy relationships work. You can provide him with all three, and though he might reject the idea of change (perhaps even in a violent manner), with time and care he’ll come to understand where the boundaries of a relationship lie. Surely, there will be times in which he falls prey to his darkest thoughts, but the progress is admirable.

His recovery aside, he’s truly one of the kindest lovers out there, getting slightly rough only during horny times (he wouldn’t be able to withstand the guilt of having hurt you), and he never misses out on important dates and small details. There is a lot of unspoken understanding between you two, and with just a glance, you can convey everything that words wouldn’t suffice to describe. Regardless, he still loves composing little poems on the spot just for you (he later writes them down in a thick book that he gifts you for your birthday), pressing a soft kiss to your lips when he’s done reciting his small part.

As a couple, you pretty much have all the freedom in the world. Living in a house far from prying eyes and unwelcome visitors, you can enjoy your much-beloved solitude from the rest of the world. Even in the same house, he will eventually come to respect your wish for independence and alone-time. Though there is a lot of work behind it, you and William finally reach an equilibrium that few couples would be able to maintain for long.

Second choice: Dazai

Despite being quite the trickster, an unprovoked Dazai is a person that enjoys quiet spaces and his fair share of alone time. You two could definitely get along pretty well, but getting past the acquaintances-who-have-some-idle-chat-every-now and then phase? That could be slightly harder.

Everyone has their bad days, and depending on the person, some may want to let the whole world know about their feelings, whether others prefer keeping everything inside. Well, Dazai is definitely the second case. Just as usual, he puts on his happy mask and clown nose in the poor attempt of shifting his focus on his surroundings, but ever so often his facade slips off completely. Be it a glance, an unhappy comment or the sudden quietness, you pick up on it quite easily.

There are many strong personalities that leave their lasting impressions in the mansion. For each you could find at least 10 adjectives to describe them without you even being close, but what about Dazai? At first glance, he seems like one of the most dual characters in the vampiric group; one side of him is warm and caring, completely in the norm, but most things he says leave a certain bitter aftertaste. One could describe him as a breeze, but you had noticed that this warm spring breeze could turn into a chilly autumn one in the blink of an eye.

He’s seemingly a superficial man, but many little details convince you otherwise. Spending a whole month in the past with no one to talk to was out of the question, and mystery man here is the tragic hero that had piqued your curiosity the most so... why not give it a try? You would have to approach him first (he reaches out to people mainly when he sees they're struggling with their emotions), and with the right words here and there his fake smile will crumble away. (you don't necessarily need to be an expert speaker, he's a smart one and will understand what you mean)

Of course, he won't be giving in too easily, but he's quick to notice your genuine interest and curiosity towards him. You'll be going back in a month, so even if he let you see a snippet of who he truly was... it wouldn't be such a bad thing, right? Unfortunately for him, all the romance he has ever experienced in his life was tied to his and his partner's mental health, so with you there to help him out with his emotional state, he's quick to fall for you. (these aren't really spoilers,, its just facts about irl dazai but idk how much they decided to keep in his route tbh, I've only read a general summary)

On the other hand, it may take you some time to realize your feelings, and sometimes you wonder whether your initial reason to get close to him was just your love for psychology. With time, that will all become a secondary matter, for thus you'll start seeing him as a true friend, and perhaps something more.

Oftentimes you hang out in his room and have long discussions while sharing some tea and sweets together. Topics may vary from analysis of fictional characters to more philosophical matter, and a couple dumb jokes here and there: other times the room falls in the most comfortable of silences, the atmosphere warm and relaxed.

Dazai definitely doesn't mind your goofy side, he actually enjoys it quite a lot. You, him, and Arthur could team up and become the most annoying trio of the mansion, much to Isaac's dismay. It's very clear to the Englishman though, that you two have something going on, although you don't seem to be aware of it. He will start teasing you and dropping heavy hints until Dazai eventually confronts him about it.

When it dawns on you, it doesn't take long before you and Dazai confess to each other and become a couple. If you're both mutually interested then why wait? Your straightforward nature plays a big part in this, despite your communication skills. Dazai secretly admires this aspect of yours, and if you question him about it, he will admit it without embarrassment and the fondest of looks.

As partners, you have a very mature relationship, and neither of you has a problem with meeting the other's needs. The Japanese writer will always respect your wishes and opinions, but every now and then, mostly at nighttime, he will crave your touch and comfort. Old habits die hard, and it's not easy to completely let go of one's past, that is why he seeks your warmth. Offer him your lap, pepper his face with delicate kisses, tenderly stroke his hair; whatever you have to offer will be more than enough for him. These are very intimate and romantic moments between the two of you, in which your bond gets stronger and stronger, although through quiet reassurance and support.

He doesn't necessarily mind PDA, but he'd rather you keep your most explicit gestures to the privacy of your rooms. Nevertheless is a man of great calm and patience, and he's a great actor, too; don't be too surprised if he decides to tease you in public. Generally speaking though, he'll stick to basic stuff like hand-holding and such.

You have dates in the most random of places! The termae, the gazebo, on the riverbank or in some obscure neighborhood of the city. He loves strolling around with you, and he'll get so lost in the feeling of your hand in his that once he snaps out of it he doesn't realize where your feet have taken you.

Another activity that you two could end up doing together is drinking. He takes you to his favorite bar, where he orders his favorite drink, cigarette in hand (he smokes only if you're okay with it) while looking impossibly hot. You can order yourself a beer and then you can have whatever discussion you feel like having. He is not one to judge, and will happily comply and talk about all topics. Whether it's a book you've read or something that happened to someone in the mansion, he will quietly listen to you as he sips on his whiskey or brandy or whatever, adding a thoughtful comment here and there.

#400 followers special #answered

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btssunnyboy · 5 years ago

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Mistakes- Jeon Jungkook

Being drunk is such a cliche excuse, but being sober only makes matters worse.

Word Count- 3,087

Warning - Cheating, implied sexual themes and mentions of alcohol.

Also this was inspired by the amazing @hobisgorgeousass and their Shattered fic! I really hope you don’t mind me tagging you!

Masterlist

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It definitely wasn’t a spur of the moment type thing.

It took months, more specifically four months. It was all good at the start, almost too good to actually be true. The longing kisses and the desperate touches were something you began to crave the longer you stayed. It was all so delectable, who would want to willingly leave something so amazing like that. Through your eyes it seemed like a perfect relationship.

Oh god, where would you begin to describe why it was immaculate. For starters the luscious dates he’d always prepare. Moonlit dinners with soft candle light, or a cheesy, but very wonderful walk on the beach. He’d wrap his arms around your waist and sway to an unheard rhythm. It was peaceful and beautiful, as were all of his dates.

His perfect words. He had a way to hook you in with a single syllable that dripped past those honey like lips. They’d wrap around you like a fluffy blanket, trying to provide you with some sort of comfort. You should’ve paid more attention to often he spoke those caring words, versus what he does now. He’d usually treat his words like a poem, making sure they follow a pattern and definitely making sure they express all the feelings that run a muck in his oh so troubled mind.

His touch and his overall scene of love. At the start, it was like being on cloud nine. He showered you in affection every chance. His large hands clasping over your smaller ones. Rubbing those comforting circles over your smooth knuckles. Pressing his soft lips your tender neck and painting a beautiful masterpiece of the blank canvas. As possessive as it sounds he loved letting everyone know your heart is already taken and not up for sale.

The thing is he’s worked out a routine. A precise and well thought out routine. It has to be perfect he can’t get caught, but he can’t fall behind and accidentally mix two things that should never mix as long as he’s alive. He has to make sure you received the gentle smooches and the others received the rough part of him that is begging to be released. The tequila that lingered on his breath done more then just sting, it made his body reactions a bit more uncalled for. He had control, but at the same time he didn’t.

He knew it was a bad idea to mix stress with the overwhelming amount of alcohol. Yet he did it. Despite all the nagging in his ears, he grabbed his keys and raced to a secluded bar. Filled with only ones who could keep a secret or those who were going through the same famous troubles as him. A soft hand, kinda like yours, but the difference between the two were easily noticeable.

He should’ve stopped it right then and there. Let this stranger know his love was at home, and he couldn’t betray her. Yet he allowed one drink to quickly turn into another which then led to another. Pretty soon her face was slightly distorted and the sight resembled you in a weird way. Her lips were so inviting, so damn inviting. He couldn’t help himself.

Do you wanna take this somewhere else?

The question hung heavy in the air, but his body reacted before his mind. His tattooed fingers cling to her ink-less skin within a second. The walk to the car sobered him up a bit, but his mind was already set. There was a beautiful woman — not as beautiful as you — giving him bedroom eyes, and he needed to release. His inner roughness was clawing at his insides and the way this mystery women was talking it seemed like he hit the jackpot. Saying she could last a few rounds, and she was already half way undress in the car.

The moment the car pulled up to the doom he led her to his room as quietly as he could. The soft giggles she was letting out were distracting, and he’s do anything to get that horrendous sound to spot echoing in his head. So he grabbed her waist and held her against the wall. The steaming hot kiss between the two leaving them breathless. Her shaky breathes were edging him on as he attacked her neck with this honey lips. The same lips that placed loving kisses on your forehead, but now instead of honey they’re venom.

They’re a substance to be used with caution, it’s dangerous to play with something like this. She knew as she pulled him into another kiss and it was at that moment she knew this wouldn’t be the last time they met. When his bedroom closed and the legs opened, he knew this was a mistake. It went on to happen though, with the sound of the headboard assaulting the wall. Making the paint chip with the harder it happened.

He was careful as can be the first time. Besides one thing. He didn’t plan on someone banging on the door with urgency. The sound made him shoot up and his eyes dart to the sleeping body placed beside him. The mystery stranger, whose name he soon found out was Piper. He shook her wildly and tossed her discarded clothes in her direction and made her hide in the closet. It was such a childish thing to do, hide the one who just slept with. Why not own up and just say you got laid.

Oh that’s right he can’t, because that’s not you in the closet. But that could be you at the door, and he can’t let these two situations meet in the middle. Time, that was all he needed, but he knew he didn’t deserve it. He deserved to be caught in his dirty tracks. He deserved to have his dirty laundry aired out for the entire fucking world to see.

She blew him a kiss when he shut the wooden door once more and raced to other. He swung it open and a sight of relief passed through his body. It wasn’t you, but it someone he knew would keep this secret. Jimin eyed his out of breath figure suspiciously and soon let his gaze linger around the room.

“I thought Y/n hated pink?” He questioned, what was supposed to be an innocent question as well. His head tilted in confusion before he put the small puzzle together. You hated pink with a passion, and he knew that bra definitely wasn’t your style. “You mother fucker.”

“Jimin I can explain!” Jungkook gasped out as he yanked the man into his room.

Jimin let out a dry scoff as he watched the women come out of the closet. Jimin forcefully yanked himself away from Jungkooks touch, like the mere brush of his fingertips burned him like a raging fire. His face held a mix of emotions, but disgust was overtaking them all.

“You screwed up big time.”

“Is anyone else here.” Jungkook panicked as he peeked his head out of the door. Seeing no one insight he grabbed a handful of cash and said get a cab to the women. When he finally heard the front door slam shut he turned to a pissed off Jimin. “Don’t say anything! Please!”

“And why the hell should I keep this a secret. You fucking cheated on y/n!” Jimin bellowed as he made wild hand gestures to prove his point. “Besides I don’t even have to open my mouth for her to find out.”

Jungkook held a confused look until he followed Jimin’s gaze down to his neck. At neck breaking speed he raced to his bathroom. His canvas was painted. Purple with splotches of red littered his neck. For once, you weren’t the paintbrush in this example. He knew he was royal screwed now, oh god he didn’t want this to happen.

“Jimin please I’m begging you I love her! I swear this’ll be the only time.” Jungkook sobbed with his bloodshot eyes. He couldn’t lose you, he just couldn’t bare the thought.

“You better not be lying.”

Those five little words lifted a weight off of Jungkook’s shoulders. After this he went on his day as usually, just making sure his neck was covered. On the other hand Jimin was a ball of nerves. The stress from this secret was eating him alive. He should’ve said something and made you’d leave Jungkook once in for all. When he decided to keep this secret he thought it was for a once time mistake, what he didn’t realize was this one time mistake was growing into a common occurrence.

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

He’s being distant. A lot more then he is usually. You knew the stress of the upcoming tour, and he needed to sort things out. It was best you kept your distance as well. If only you knew what that meant. Right now he wasn’t complaining about the stressful choreography, but he was praising the women beneath him. After the usually session was done he grabbed his clothes and bolted.

“What took so long?” You questioned as you sat up from the floor.

“Yeah just needed a longer bathroom break.” Jungkook shrugged as he placed a sweet kiss onto your cheek. Your eyes lingered on the sweat that was dripping down his neck and the stain right above the collar of his shirt. Before you had the chance to speak up another voice beat you to it.

“How about we all go out and eat. I can ask Piper to arrange something.” Namjoon suggested as he downed his water.

“I’m up for it.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

Jimin felt like he was going to throw up all over his meal. He couldn’t believe that’s she of all people got hired as a personal assistant. He wished he could just scream at the two of them and let this shit get settled. He almost gagged at the sight of them giving sideways glance to each other each time you turned around.

That fucker promised him it was a one time mistake. He’d lost count of how many times he’s caught then since then. The other members are beginning to catch on and oh how they wished they had the balls and tell you. Their breaths hitched slightly when Piper has to excuse herself due to a so called urgent phone call. Like clockwork, Jungkook excused himself to the bathroom.

“Geez, you could cut the tension with a knife.” You commented lightly as you picked up a piece of your meat. Your softly chewed under the tense eyes of the others.

“He’s cheating.”

It caught you off guard. In the process making your meat go down the wrong pipe. Seokjin softly sighed as he hit the boy next to him.

“Are you being serious?”

“Y/n-“

“Don’t say my name when it’s not relevant, are you being serious? Is there any proof?” You asked worriedly as you bounced your leg up and down. Their eyes stayed casted downward and that was all the evidence you needed. You quickly excused yourself and hastily walked towards the restroom. As soon as you yanked opened the bathroom door two figures stepped out of a stall.

You’d remember those red bottom heels anywhere. And those black combat boots as well.

“You’ve got be to fucking kidding me!”

Both stopped dead in their tracks when their eyes landed on you. Your eyes were glossy and tears were screaming to fall over your waterline. Your legs felt like jello as you fell into the nearby wall. Out of instinct Jungkook’s arms began to wrap themselves around your fragile form. When his skin touched your all those suppressed feelings surfaced and a sob raked through your body.

You yanked yourself away and quickly wiped underneath your eyes. If anyone saw you like this then they’d know what happened in this stupid bathroom. You couldn’t afford to cause a scene, if this got out who knows what would happen to the boy’s reputation. Even though you wanted so desperately to take everything away from Jungkook you couldn’t do that to the rest of them, even if they know all along.

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

You should’ve connected the dots sooner. From the red wine stain on his white shirt, he drinks tequila and you never drink red. Next, was the late night hours he’d come back home. You knew he worked hard, but he was unusually tired and you never would’ve guessed that the reason was another woman. Lastly, you should’ve known your nose wasn’t fooling you. That cheap perfume was a dead giveaway, since you’d never use something that, well cheap.

If you had just paid a smidge more attention you could’ve avoided this whole thing. The boys wouldn’t have had to lie and keep this dirty secret. Right now you probably wouldn’t have all of his belongings in a box ready for it leave your sight at once.

“Get your shit.”

The harshness of your voice took him back more then a bit. He came not only because of his stuff, but he wanted to make peace. He wanted to try to win you back. It was a stupid plan, at least that’s what everyone was preaching to him, but he needed to make things right.

“Baby please it was an honest mistake.”

“Don’t baby me, and besides cheating is a choice not a mistake.”

The conversation died after those words. They echoed in his brain like a taunt. He deserved it though, is what he kept telling himself. He deserved every ounce of pain and guilt that were gonna come his way. If anything he deserved for his whole career be destroyed, just like destroyed your relationship.

“I know your legs work, use them and leave.”

You have no remorse for him. You wanted him out of your house, and out of your life completely. Not caring about how harsh you sounded, you were not going to be gentle and caring version of yourself. You were going to be a stone cold bitch. Jungkook eyed the box once more with a guilt stricken face. His eyes soon glossed over, and he almost let the sob loose.

“I’m still so sorry, y/n.”

“You should be, now get out.”

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

He’s a total wreck, from his head to his toes. Everyone could only watch on as his light dimmed each and every day. They felt bad, but he brought this on himself and he needed to learn from his actions. Just because he was famous doesn’t mean his actions can’t have consequences.

“Y/n, he’s a mess.”

That didn’t bother you one bit. It’s only been two weeks since the breakup and in all honesty you were doing fine. Not perfect, but you were getting along just fine without him. By the sounds of it, Jungkook seemed to be taking this hardest.

“Should I care?” You shrugged as you nonchalantly sipped on your drink. “Why am I even here?”

“We just wanted to see if you’d consider just talking to him for a few minutes, the poor boy looks like he could use some time with you.” Yoongi softly spoke, as he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. He knew how the whole ordeal happened, and he knew this was a touchy subject. Surprisingly, he was the only one who didn’t know this was happening at the start.

“I get it you guys care about him, but he broke my heart. He cheated on me and now I’m gonna have to live with this constant doubt that I’ll never be good enough.”

“You’re more then enough, Y/n.” Jimin stated rather quickly as he soon zipped his mouth shut. His cheeks burned a bright red as he kept his head down.

You ignored those words as your mind kept replaying that night. As you watched the two walk out of that stall. Her burgundy lipstick smeared across her chin, and the shoulder strap of her dress hanging limply beside of her arm. His arm was wrapped around her waist and his lips were still pressing soft kisses to the base of her neck. Then their eyes met yours and the color drained from their faces.

In all honesty, you wished you’d slapped him. Tell him how much of a fucking idiot he was. Make him wither in a pit of his guilt and despair, but you didn’t. You let yourself go in that moment and you swore to yourself that you’d never let yourself get caught up in anything like that again.

“He still texts me a lot.” You sighed as you ran a hand though your hair. The soft sensation calming you down slightly. You shouldn’t have said anything, but you needed to get this off of your chest. “I barley open them, but if I do I never respond.”

“Are you ever gonna talk to him again?” Hoseok asked while his fingers tapped away at the table. As much as you tried to focus on that sound you still couldn’t get the situation out of your head.

“I want to say no, I really do, but in all honesty I’ll probably give in like I always do.” You scoffed at your pathetic self. He cheated, he’s the one who destroyed this relationship. You shouldn’t even give him the time of day. Now here you are actually thinking of talking to him again. Talking to the one person who single handily destroyed the way you see yourself.

“Just talk for a few minutes and get every last thing off of your chest. It might help you feel better.” Taehyung suggested as he gestured to the buzzing phone on the table. The screen lighting up multiple times with a phone number. “Did you take him out of your contacts?”

“I had too, because the temptation to text him got stronger every time I looked at his name.” You mumbled, while fiddling with the sleeve of your worn out sweater. “I thought he would’ve got the hint by now.”

“Y/n, please just try to give him one more chance to get some last minute things off of his chest.”

You took their advice too heart and tried to settle things out. You typed your heartfelt text and poured every ounce of your hatred and sorrow into as well.

Let’s just hope he finally gets the hint, you’re done. And you want him to finally leave and go be with another. Considering it wasn’t that hard for him when you were together, now he’s free real-a-state anyone can have him.

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solacefruit · 4 years ago

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Hi there! First of all, you are a great source of inspiration to me, and I wanted to thank you for sharing your stories and insight on writing in general! I got a question and I hope you dont mind. What do you think makes a story sad or emotional, to the point where a reader may cry? I'm currently writing a story and I want to make sure to get emotions out of my readers but I'm struggling to figure out how to do that. Tips on how to set a sad and emotional tone would be appreciated. Thank you!!

(This has been in my inbox for about a century, I’m so sorry I’m only now getting around to answering it).

Hello! Thank you so much for saying so, I’m glad my work and chatter is both fun and useful to you. This is kind of a difficult question to answer, for the same reason this one is: a lot of writing is intuitive for me and so it can be a struggle sometimes to articulate the process in a helpful way. I’ll do my best, though!

I think it’s pretty safe for me to say that hitting emotional pressure points for people is a strength of my writing, usually. I don’t know if I can teach exactly how to do that, but I’m happy to give some insights and tips I’ve picked up along the way as I’ve figured things out for myself.

Tip 1. Diversify the feelings. There are lots of emotions and they travel in packs. Emotions are complex and layered and that’s good. Embrace complexity in your characters, because that’s more real than having just one feeling at any time. A character being “sad” or “angry” becomes a one-note tune really fast, because it’s very easy to accidentally hit your reader over the head with “sad, sad, sad, sad” or “angry, angry, angry.” What should be a moving scene can become bland if you sink too deep into just one feeling. A lot of what people describe as “angst” falls into this trap, but any emotion can become boring when it’s the only one present.

By comparison, a character being “sad” and “angry” is far more interesting, because these feelings are in conversation with each other. It’s a more textured emotional space. Think about all of the ways a character is feeling and consider how these feelings would move against each other: what feelings are stronger than others, what feelings is the character more susceptible to believing as truth, what feelings conflict with each other and how does the character feel about that?

It’s very possible to love someone very much and be furious with them for something they did and be hurt and sad for yourself and still feel pity the person who hurt you, and that’s human. I’ve always found scenes that try to talk about that huge complicatedness to be the most interesting and moving to both read and write. I also find sad and painful moments to hit better when there’s the counterpoint moments of sweetness and joy alongside them. Grief makes love more powerful; love makes grief hurt more.

This might be a contentious suggestion but, in my opinion, no emotions are interesting by default. What makes them interesting is the relationship they have with each other and how the character acts and relates to the feelings they experience.

Tip 2. Set the tone for yourself first. A lot of writing is based in empathy--i.e., being able to at least imagine what an experience is like, and then transcribing that in a skillful way for someone else, so that they can imagine it too. Because of that, it often helps if you’ve experienced some of what you’re writing about: that’s where the advice “write what you know” comes from. However, it’s not necessary in most cases and good writers are people who are talented at extrapolating what something might feel like and then describing that experience in a truly convincing way. That said, it can definitely help being in the right mood and mindset for the kind of scene you’re trying to write, so it’s worth figuring out how to set the scene for yourself before you begin.

For me, I usually use music. I’ll pick a song, maybe two, that I’ll listen to more or less on repeat while writing a particular scene, because it’s like a tuning fork for me: it keeps me on key. However, it doesn’t have to be music! You might have a particular poem or passage from a book that really makes your heart feel like it’s going to burst, and that’s such a useful thing to tap into when you’re trying to pass that feeling on to your readers. Find what works for you and don’t be afraid to lean on it when you’re working on your scenes.

Tip 3. The “light touch” then “piano” approach. This is a theory I’ve had in my mind for a long time and it’s a big part of my writing practice, but I have no idea how well it’s going to translate outside of my own head, so I’m sorry in advance.

I think belabouring a feeling can kill a scene, basically. If you go in too hard or you try to squeeze too much out of a reader, you become a parody of yourself. A reader can build up a tolerance to the barrage or become bored (as I do with a lot of “grimdark” media), and that’s really what you want to avoid. My advice for doing so is using a “light touch” most of the time--i.e., lightly tap your reader with a moment or feeling and then move on, try to be breezy with the fleeting feelings of your characters, and resist trying to make them have a big feeling at every moment.

There’s a reason for this approach. It’s because you are about to drop a piano. In this context, I consider “a piano” (or a sledgehammer, whatever you prefer) to be a really potent moment, an intense feeling, a line of dialogue that cuts super raw, anything that really packs a punch and is intend to hit as hard as possible. I know it sounds goofy, but for a long time, that’s how I’ve envisioned those kinds of moments and honestly it fits.

In some martial arts (weird swerve, I know), the first few hits aren’t intended to hurt: they’re intended to misdirect attention, or off-balance the target, or distract, or prime the spot for a bigger hit. I think the same theory can be applied to writing, because good writing a precision sport, not a brute-force one. You’re not trying to clock the reader over the head repeatedly with a blunt instrument of a feeling, because, as I mentioned earlier, that tends to be less effective the longer you do it.

Instead, you want to prime your reader to take the most psychic damage possible when you finally find the right moment to drop the piano. Because of that, writing a great emotional scene is primarily about managing tension and lining up your shot. Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of this skill is something that you learn to do intuitively the more you do it, but you can still intentionally think about your writing in this way and consider how you can make your most meaningful moments really count.

For instance, think about the core feelings you’re writing about and consider how you might prime those feelings throughout the piece by light references, fleeting moments, pieces of the puzzle that will take on new significance in hindsight when you drop the piano. Figure out where you’re going to put the lulls into your work and figure out where you’re going to build tension--and then figure out how you’re going to manage that tension after you build it. Will you pop it with a really big moment, or will you let it lull down again, or will you leave it unresolved?

I don’t know how much help this will be in a practical sense, but I truly feel that ultimately what makes an emotional scene effective is landing that one powerful, resonant moment. That’s not to say there’s only one moment like that or that there can’t beautiful and moving lines that have less significance, but if you’re looking to really make that crescendo wave of feeling crash in a reader, you need to prime them for it, build up tension in some way, and then release with something that makes the heart ache. I personally don’t know any other way to do it. I hope this helps!

#reply #advice

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jonhoel · 4 years ago

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Alex Dimitrov’s Love and Other Poems

Love and Other Poems. Alex Dimitrov. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2021. 119 pages. $17.

The poetry collected in Love and Other Poems is very New York, almost intoxicatingly New York. It is Alex Dimitrov’s most ambitious book in concept, and his most emotionally forthright; many of the best poems forgo cryptic ambiguities and strafe toward the upper case emotions and big statements, a poetics in the mode of giants.

Love and Other Poems chronicles one calendar year in the city, beginning with June and ending in May, and sees the poet contemplating life in his city in that time. The lavishness of ideas within the book is admirable in its own right, but it is in the small moments of vulnerability quietly visible between grandiosities that makes the book special: “I completely forgot we’d never met / you had left the country / and possibly the earth / Which is how I would describe desire.” Dimitrov’s writing reads as thoroughly self-aware. He maneuvers successfully through poetic expectations, precisely because he recognizes what works for him as a poet and what does not. He seems to lean into a narrative formula of structure, tone and topic in his poems – the poet wryly reminds us of this mishmash in the opening of the poem “May,” “What can I tell you? / I’m a young man in Central Park / A cherry blossom falls in my hair / like small cruelty.”

Dimitrov always heightens the connection between the city and the cosmos, which he sometimes finds at ends, but always brings them together. A moment that highlights this topical framing is in the poem “1969,” where he begins, “the year everyone left for the moon / even those yet to be born.” For Dimitrov, New York is always the center of the universe. The poet himself though, often seems to reside on the moon like Dr. Manhattan, he stoops down at the lights of the city below; he is not thrilled with what he sees. The soul of Dimitrov’s New York (perhaps an older New York than the one we have now), invokes Zadie Smith’s New York, from the essay “Find Your Beach,” which laments the shifting currents of the city, where Brooklyn becomes Manhattan, and Manhattan becomes culturally irrelevant. The poet is aware of this, having come of age in this changing landscape of the city. In the book, he conjures a specific New York, and in doing so, attempts to preserve it, but it is also a form of eulogy.

The poems imaginatively fissures contemporary love and heartbreak in the 2010s, while hinting at something deeper, a more profound lachrymose, which lurks beneath the surface of each page. It is a difficult task to adequately capture what it means to date in the contemporary moment, while also engaging a larger tradition of love poetry, but the poet does both, with enormous success. Dimitrov waltzes three beats in the book: romantic longing, New York, and the moon and stars. He maneuvers these three beats with firm repetition throughout the collection, almost like an incantation. These topics, particularly the cosmos, is not new territory for the poet; Dimitrov having established himself through his collaborative work with the poet Dorothea Lasky as Astro Poets a popular astrology account on Twitter. The duo have amassed upwards of 625,000 followers, far exceeding that of most of their poetry contemporaries.

One of the best poems in the collection comes at the very end in “Poem Written in a Cab,” which makes up the entirety of the fifth section of the book. Dimitrov states in the endnotes that he wrote the poem over the course of two years with the constraint that he only worked on it while he was in a cab. In the poem, he encounters one cab driver who is an immigrant from Russia. After some roundabout conversation, they come to discuss America. Dimitrov explains to the cab driver that he himself is an immigrant, who came to America from Bulgaria twelve years ago. The cab driver reveals he has been in America for thirty years, which surprises us as readers—and surprises the poet too. He writes, “I actually love this so much / because for a second I’m young / in this cab, at least / someone younger.” We know he is not talking about age—he is speaking about the youngness of the American experience. He still feels the enormity of possibility stretched out before him, even in a time of profound uncertainty and fearfulness. In a book full of poems about the hardships and heartbreaks of a life in the city, this sudden excitement in him, regarding youthfulness, what has not yet arrived, feels like a fitting end to the book. It finds the poet, worn but staring forward.

Dimitrov is a poet who never shies away from difficulty. He seems uninterested in abiding by the social politics of the industrialized New York poetry world. His own influences are all candidly visible—the appearance of a poem in this collection written with a Ouija board recalls directly James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover. The so-annoying-it-somehow-becomes-charming poem “Having a Diet Coke With You,” along with the book’s epigraph are both nods to Frank O’Hara who, more than anyone else, is the direct forefather of this collection. In a way, Dimitrov’s New York is more like O’Hara’s New York, than any other. He is pushing back at Joan Didion—pushing back at the idea of New York as a mecca for youth. If anything, Dimitrov’s New York champions all that is intoxicating about his poetics, a peter pan quality that does not feign an ignorance toward the cynicism of the city, but simply throws these mindsets down into the depths below.

The heart of the book comes from the poem “New York,” where Dimitrov describes various places he has cried in the city, and seems to see the city, not as a backdrop for the act of weeping, but as a cathartic participant in the act, as if New York itself both wounds and consoles him in these moments. Other New York poems can come off more as sentimental monologues at the bar from New York emigrants ten year your senior, insisting to you it was much cooler before. All these poets certainly departed the city during the pandemic in 2020. Not Dimitrov though. In these moments of elitism, Dimitrov comes off more charming than cynical—his affection for his city never wears on the reader. The seriousness of his devotion to his city feels so strident and unyielding. In the wake of the pandemic, with so many leaving, claiming that the soul of the city is permanently tainted, and in the wake of people loading corpses into trucks, the thought of anything akin to a Whitmanian dedication to the city, might come across as absurd, as incapable of penetrating the despair and uncertainty swirling around those same streets.

But there is another side to that same thought. That now, with all the capitalism glamor and sheen torn away, with what remains being the pus and the gnats of a city, its glistening organs, only those most loyal to it stand able-bodied for that inexorably difficult task. Dimitrov seems game for the reckoning.

#poetry #alex dimitrov #new york #poem #review

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httphonsool · 5 years ago

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red velvet cookies

synopsis; in which you would love to stop loving min yoongi, but those damned red velvet cookies are not helping

word count: 5, 127

time taken: 5 hours

warnings: angst, heartache, unrequited love I suppose, roommate!Yoongi, Student!Yoongi, I suppose there’s some Fboy!Yoongi if you wanna think about it like that and there’s implied smut so beware aha

notes;Okay, so this took me like five hours from yesterday and today altogether and I guess I’m happy with the result, lemme know what you think and feel free to suggest ideas for more imagines/one-shots/short series :)))

I’ll try and make a masterlist or something to keep up with all the fics

It was never soft with him, no, interacting with this man had always been blunt and harsh as if you were treading on fragile ice, just waiting for things to come crashing down around you, at certain times you felt like the tension was building up; maybe today was the day it would all blow up, after all, the relationship the two of you had built throughout the year and six months you had been living together was insecure, vulnerable, the little interaction between the two of you precious and unreliable, yet you still yearned for more, though you knew what you wanted would not be given to you; that you were being selfish and greedy, you knew should have respected it for what it was, but the heart always wants more, you couldn’t blame your heart for that, right?

All you wanted was to have a…stronger relationship with this man, you wanted the precious, fragile interactions to grow with this man- this man that was strange, a mystery to the naked eye, a man who you would only know if you were around him more than often, and thank God you could say that you were around him more than anyone else, this man had mastered the act of hating you, precisely just because he did, and it hurt more than anything to know that.

He would come back from classes (He’s majoring in Music Production, another beautiful reason you want him closer to you), completely ignoring you all the while, even when you said hello and asked him how his day had been, especially when you ask him how his day’s been, all you want is for him to complain about his day to you God, you would give anything, anything to listen to his voice, his soothing voice.

His voice, that deserves millions and billions of poems and literature written about it on its own, to you: it’s perfection, it calms you; reminds you of how the waves crash on rocks, listening to it makes you giddy like a high school girl, makes you feel like you’re floating in clouds, like you’re frolicking through a meadow with the love of your life. His voice brings you comfort, more comfort than any Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream could ever bring you. My God, you remember the first time you heard him laugh, yet it wasn’t because of you, no, how could it? No, it was that stupid, dumb, sorority girl: you were sitting on the couch binge-watching Teen Wolf (because who doesn’t love Stiles Stilinski, Dylan O’Brien was hot), he came in with his dear old Stephanie into your slightly spacious apartment which somehow you’ve managed to afford, she made some dumb joke about you about how she honestly doesn’t know how he manages to live with you because you disgust him and he laughed, very hard, he laughed because he was drowning in the way this Becky girl was basically made for him, had the same sense of humour, perfect in looks (whereas you disgusted him for some reason) and you were drowning because your heart wrenched, no, it ached because this, for you, confirmed you’d never be able to make him happy like that, for God’s sake he didn’t even like you, he thought you were disgusting, the definition of disgusting, as good old Stephanie had said. You couldn’t be mad at him though, how could you? How could you when that laugh gave you life? Dragged you out of your darkest nightmare, filled you with pure joy on your worst day? Though, you still felt like complete and utter shit due to her comment, all was made better when you found several tubs of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream in the freezer, you didn’t know whether Yoongi had brought it for himself (you assumed he had) or whether it was for you, because you had been crying earlier in your room, although, you were hoping no one had heard you as you had been embarrassed enough in the moment, you took the ice cream anyway because even if it made Yoongi angry that you stole what was his, at least he would notice you, at least he would acknowledge you for the first time in weeks.

☆

The second time you heard him laugh was when he was talking to his mother, ah, his mother, at least she acknowledged you, you remember the first time she met you whilst visiting her beloved Yoongi, she had brought you red velvet cookies, your favourite, you didn’t know whether she knew those were your favourite but it did make you feel as if you were loved for once, since Yoongi wasn’t capable of loving someone like you, and God damn, those cookies were better than the store bought ones you always got, after a while, his mother’s visits became more frequent and not only for her son, but for you too, your frequent ‘Mrs. Min’ became ‘Eomma,’ because she felt that you were basically her child at this point, and you were hoping, praying, begging that this would maybe also bring you closer to this Min Yoongi man that had claimed your heart- no, had claimed soul, your heart and your body and mind completely and utterly because of the way he acted around others, it may not have been healthy but it was the whole truth, one that would always haunt you.

You don’t know when you fell for him, to be honest you didn’t want to, your entire life you were trying to best to stay away from boys. In your mind, all they did was cause trouble: you’d seen countless women in your life crying because a man had broken their heart, you remember seeing your best friend, your best friend, a girl whom you’d known for almost your whole life, crying because her boyfriend had cheated on her, she claimed she loved him, poor soul thought it was her fault, that it was because she wasn’t good enough and you never understood that until you met Yoongi, sure you dated other guys, but you never dated someone for longer than a month, claiming they’ll break your heart, which is a joke now that you look at how long you’ve been living with Yoongi, how long you’ve been pining after him with love that you cannot even begin to describe.

☆

You don’t know what it was or how it started, maybe it was the way he was so warm to his friends, the way he would take care of them, often letting them sleep over if they were drunk or inviting them over and cooking for them just because they hadn’t eaten, maybe it was the way he would take to his mother every night before bed and laugh and talk to her with so much respect and love, maybe it was the small things he did: how he would leave a painkiller somewhere near you every single time you complained about your headache or any pain in general, or like how sometimes you and your friend would go out and get drunk (usually you would drink with the pain of loving Yoongi on your mind) and you would wake up with hangover shots by your bedside, or like the time you fell asleep crying on the couch and you woke up in your bed comfortably tucked in, but no, oh God no, don’t mistake those small gestures for his care, no he does that because he’s a good person, you know that, you know he probably does it for all the girls he’s dated (there’s a lot of them, and that proves he’s more than capable of loving anyone except you, and that really fricken hurts).

Maybe that’s why you’re sitting in front of him on the kitchen counter right now, observing him as he eats.

“Hey,” You smile at him; you know there won’t be a reply, at least not one longer than a second. He briefly looks into your eyes, a stone hard expression blooming on his face.

“How was your day?” You ask, honestly, why do you bother? Oh, right, because you’re in love with him.

Stupid girl, still trying for him even after all this time, you think.

“It was okay,” Hold on a minute, you think you just made history; he’s actually talking to you.

Maybe it was just a really good day, your thoughts wander.

“Was class fun?” You ask hesitantly, you could cut the tension with a knife at this point, all parties could feel it. You don’t get a reply this time, but you’re satisfied with the fact that he ever replied at all.

You still can’t comprehend how you could love him this much, how you could bend your back, break your bones for a man who has the capability to love anyone but you, you still can’t comprehend why you still make him breakfast when you’re leaving early for class, why you still bake red velvet cookies (his mother gave you the recipe) and make loads of extras for him because all of a sudden since you first met his mother it became his favourite as well (at least, that’s according to his mother), you can’t comprehend why you still make him lunch and dinner while he’s out, why you’re always playing with his dog because sometimes Yoongi is busy out somewhere (you don’t know where, you never know where) maybe with a girl, and his dog needs the attention, you do it because you love him, also because you love his dog, Holly, but you’ve come to realise Min Holly and Min Yoongi have claimed your heart completely, clutching it with a grasp that was squeezing the life out of you because my God did you love Yoongi, and at times you wish you had never even spared a glance at him, that you had ignored him and taken up the offer of the date that a male friend of yours had offered, because ignoring people seems to be working out fricking amazingly for him.

So now, as you sit on your bed after the hopeful kitchen situation, you can’t help but think about how screwed you are, because today marks a year and six months of living with Yoongi and yet you’re still not done with him, not over him like you wish you would be, but wait- there was a way was there not? You had been offered a date the other night with one of your close guy friends: turns out he’d liked you for almost a year now and oh how you wished you had just fallen for him instead and not Goddamn Yoongi, but it’s okay because you told him you’d get back to him.

And get back to him you will.

“Hey, Baekhyun? I don’t know if you remembered but…”

☆

You’re standing in front of Yoongi’s bedroom door, ready to tell him you’ll be out for the night and to tell him that he needs to wash the dishes while you’re out because you’ll be staying out late, of course, he doesn’t need to know you’re going on a date, but for some reason you just want this to be your last attempt at him, you want him to be bothered by the fact that you’re on a date, you want him to stop you from going on that date, of course, you know it’s ridiculous, because Min Yoongi doesn’t like girls like you, actually no that’s wrong; Min Yoongi doesn’t like you, as in you specifically. You turn the door handle, the ice cold material burning a hole through your hands, your whole body shaking at the sight of him because WOW Min Yoongi was so beautiful it was angelic, his perfect silver hair balanced and rooted on his head, his golden skin glistening in the dim glow of his ceiling light, his eyes, usually stone cold when he stares at you but right now as he’s working on some kind of song with headphones in a small smile planted on his face, he looks content- something you could never, and I mean never make him, because remember: Min Yoongi, doesn’t like you, as in you specifically.

He can feel your stare on him burning holes through his head, and you swear you’ve never seen him whip his neck to look at you that quick.

“What is it?” He asks, wow, look at that he speaks once more; you smile as you reflect on it.

“I just wanted to let you know I was going on a date, so would you mind doing the dishes because I’ll probably be out late,” you answer hesitantly.

Nothing, he says nothing, he just nods and turns away, and you’ve never felt shittier than you do now because damn, not even you going on a date all prettied up can make him interested in you, and that’s when you know for sure: Min Yoongi really doesn’t care about you, and that was the final stab in the gut, except the stab came with pain, absolutely excruciating pain as if you had broken your ribs and shattered your collar bones but multiply that by a million.

Min Yoongi doesn’t love you back, and he never will.

☆

Your date wasn’t special, it wasn’t even close to being good, maybe it was because you were still wholly devoted to loving Yoongi who you just couldn’t get rid of, Min Yoongi was like the annoying piece of gum that sticks to the back of your shoe and takes a while to get off, the only difference is he won’t fricking get off, and you’re tired of it, because you could have moved on with beautiful Baekhyun, Baekhyun who claimed to have liked you for almost a year, Baekhyun who could have loved you and cherished you more than Yoongi ever could, because Baekhyun was showing you that he liked you, loved you even, but if Yoongi didn’t love you, could anyone, really?

You didn’t know what it was, why it was, even, but the whole mood was off the entire night, it wasn’t Baekhyun’s fault no, no, it was Yoongi’s, because the entire time you’d been talking to Baekhyun, all you’d been thinking about was Yoongi’s gummy, wholesome smile, how Baekhyun could never compare to him, because Yoongi was Yoongi, Yoongi was the man you were in love with, the man you would break yourself for because you just loved him that much even though you really, truly wish you didn’t, but the heart wants what it wants, and your heart really, really wants Yoongi.

But now, this date had brewed up a new emotion inside of you: anger. You were angry because of your inability to stop loving Yoongi, you were angry because Yoongi always would and always will occupy your thoughts when he’s not around, angry because why, why couldn’t you move on? You thought this would work, that maybe Baekhyun could shift the entire centre of your world, you thought maybe he was the trigger you needed to pull to finally be able to move on, apparently not so because even after a date with Baekhyun at some fancy restaurant where you did fancy things like drink wine and talk about your day (something you never did with Yoongi, because Yoongi didn’t care), you were still deep down the rabbit hole which was named Loving Yoongi, because that man had claimed you whether you wanted it or not, whether he cared or not, you were in love.

And, boy, you really wish you weren’t.

☆

So now, as you stand outside your apartment door as Baekhyun kisses your cheek and wishes you a good night, you can’t help but wish that maybe… just maybe Yoongi will talk to you about it, maybe there was still a chance, though you know that there was absolutely no chance of you and Yoongi at this point, but the alcohol you’ve consumed throughout the night is blurring your thoughts and even though it was only three glasses of wine you can’t help but not think straight, and unfortunately the alcohol acts for you when you walk in and see Yoongi surrounded by empty bottles of alcohol, eyes rimmed with red, tears streaking his cheeks whilst holding an almost empty bottle of wine and the first thing you want to do is run forwards and cradle your poor baby in your arms even though you know you shouldn’t because he won’t want that but, surprisingly, as your drunken state forces you to take him into your arms and stroke your hands through his hair, his soft, luscious hair, he easily complies, letting you take him in, sobs wracking his body whilst your heart wrenches and God, you felt selfish to even think of it because your baby was hurting so much but you think you’re hurting more than him because it’s like someone’s just twisted a knife in your gut but worse. So, hushed whispers are exchanged along with words of support because he’s Yoongi, your Yoongi, and you’re in love with him and you just want to help.

“Di-did you have fun?” He’s still crying and his usual soothing voice that brings you comfort is now bringing you pain,

“God, it doesn’t matter, what’s wrong, please tell me,” You’re crying now too, because seeing the man you’re in love with, seeing your Min Yoongi, the man that barely ever smiles at you, crying is making you hurt more than any other action he’s done.

“I hope you had fun, ___, and I’m sorry, you told me to do the dishes but I-I haven’t, I’m sorry,” His sobs get louder with each words and your heart is aching, no, it’s shattering because your boy is crying, he’s broken and drunk and you’ve never seen him like this, and it’s terrifying you to death.

“Yoongi,” you whisper softly into his ear, “I don’t care about the dishes, I care about you, you stupid boy, I’ve always cared about you, wasn’t it obvious?” Your head’s telling you shouldn’t be saying this, you know you shouldn’t but here you are still spilling your guts out to him, whilst he’s drunk, I mean it’s not bad, at least this way maybe he’ll forget it, ha, if only you knew.

“___, I can’t seem to do anything right,” He’s stopped crying now, now there are just silent tears trickling down his beautiful, angelic face, “I try my best for you, ___, I buy you that Cookie Dough Ice Cream when I know you’re down, and I hate to tell you because I know you love her but my mother doesn’t always make you the red velvet cookies you love so much, no, the last few times, I was the one that made them because I know how much you love them, and God, I love them too now because I feel like that’s the only part of you I deserve to have, you always make me extras and it always manages to make me happy, but I can’t even say thank you to you for it because then I’ll get attached t-to you, to be honest I’m already addicted to you, but I can’t get deeper than I already am, I know that, but I’m such a fuck up, I don’t even deserve to be within three meters of you, I always used to tell my mother about you, you know? She wanted to hear about the girl who had me acting like I was fifteen again, and-and you know all those girls I brought around, well they were just to prove that I was capable of loving someone, but yet you still don’t want me, no, you want that guy that obviously treats you right, I mean, I don’t blame you, I deserve this,” My god, wasn’t that a shock, yet even after all of that all your brain could do was-

“I love you, Min Yoongi.”

And that’s what started it; the moment his lips met yours it was like being stuck in the middle of a fire, you wouldn’t say you felt fireworks like they do in every cliché romance novel because you knew even in your drunken state that it was better than fireworks, of course, no, this was like a bomb filled with passion and pure bliss and exploded in your body, he tasted like alcohol and cinnamon and sugar and all the sweet, blissful things in the world, he tasted like something you had been missing your entire life: the secret ingredient to your recipe you called unrequited love, he penetrated your senses until you couldn’t breathe anymore, you were drunk, yes, but even more drunk and high off of him. Things escalate fast, so fast that the next thing you know is that you’re making out with Min Yoongi, the man you love the Man you will always love, and then he’s slipping off your dress, leaving not much else to the imagination, pulling off your panties and-

“I want to lose my virginity to you,” you spill out.

“Are you sure?” He asks, “We can stop, don’t feel forced,”

“Yes,” Ha, should’ve said no.

☆

When you wake up the next morning he’s gone, you don’t remember much of the night, just the important parts, like how you’re no longer a virgin, and most definitely do you remember that you lost it to Min Yoongi, but now he’s gone, the place beside you where you were one thousand percent sure he slept was now cold, your blood curdles, because before you felt angry, angry at Min Yoongi for capturing your heart, but now? Now you just feel like a whore.

He doesn’t care about you, remember?

Of course, this was your fault, you should have said no to him, but how could you? How could you ever say no to Min Yoongi? But you should have, because now you’re left with a hangover and no virginity with hangover shots on the bedside next to you (for God’s sake Min Yoongi, why couldn’t you be a complete asshole for once in your life and let you down completely) and the only thing you remember is coming back from a date with Baekhyun and sleeping with Yoongi, nothing more, nothing less, just those two things.

Hours pass and there’s no other sign of life in the apartment other than you, it feels cold without Yoongi, yet the heating has been turned all the way up, ha, just another reason to need him back, right?

Days pass and Yoongi isn’t back yet, there’s no sign of him and you’ve been skipping classes because you can’t deal with the emptiness in your heart, the hole in the shape of Min Yoongi expanding every time you thought of him.

Exactly a week later Yoongi’s back except he’s not alone, he’s with a girl and that’s the last straw for you, you’re done with it because you’d have thought that since he took your fucking virginity he would have at least talked to you about that but no, he decides that he should bring some girl back home, back home as in where he lives where surprisingly the girl who’s virginity he took also lived.

The girl was gorgeous, she was the exact opposite of you, and that’s how you were always reminded he would never want you, because he only likes girls that aren’t you, remember?

The night he comes back you find freshly baked red velvet cookies waiting on the counter along with good old Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream, something vague comes back to you, something about Mrs. Min not being the one that bakes the cookies…but that’s stupid, absolutely ridiculous, and you know that you’re just whipping up things in your head for no reason like usual, because the only person other than Mrs. Min who knows how to make red velvet cookies is you, because you love making them for yourself, of course, but you mainly made them because Min Yoongi loves red velvet cookies.

Red velvet cookies are sweet, they’re soft, vibrant and taste all the more brilliant, a bit like Yoongi, of course, he treated you like you were a bitch on heat, left you without a single word for a week after stealing your virginity, something so precious that you decided to give away in your intoxicated state, but now that you’ve had a taste of him you want him all the more.

You’ve come to realise that loving Min Yoongi is like eating red velvet cookies, you have them all the time; you love them yet you’re not sick of them, you just want more and more and more because you’re greedy like that, because you’re selfish and you know that, but it’s also his favourite as well as yours, maybe that’s why you’re still fucking stuck on it, but it’s the only part of him you know, so how could you? How could you just stop, it’s important for you and Min Yoongi whether you realise it or not you’re both connected by some stupid cookies that you both love, it sounds so stupid but you know it’s the only chance you have because you’ll only ever be his roommate, that’s all you are to him, all you are to the girls he brings around.

Weeks pass and you watch him bring around more and more girls every day, you don’t know what he hopes to achieve by it, maybe he just wants companionship, but you feel like you’re missing something, something you should know but you can’t quite grasp it, but as the days go on and on you realise he’s stopped his fuckboy routine and now there’s just one girl coming around every single day, and boy, if you thought he broke you before? Well, then, you’re absolutely shattered to pieces now, he seems to be serious about her, I mean, if he wasn’t she wouldn’t be coming around every single day would she? You wouldn’t be hearing her annoying, high-pitched voice, would you? You were so stupid to think that maybe he would stop his maniacal antic and actually talk to you, no, you were more than stupid. That’s what triggered the countless nights of crying and mental breakdowns, because you were so done with him, except you weren’t, you were a broken record, stuck on the same thing, the same man, over and over again because you couldn’t understand the fact that this was it, this was his way of telling you to fuck off, to stop trying, almost as if he was holding up two long middle fingers up at you every time you would hear him and her at night.

☆

00:53 a.m.

Here you are sitting on your bedroom floor and crying about your life, well to be exact Min Yoongi the man who had claimed your life, you’ve heard the door to your bedroom open but you don’t care at this point, you’re an absolute mess because you’ve really fucked yourself up, and how are you now going to fix it? Warmth spreads through your body at a simple touch on the small of your back, you know it’s him, you felt it before throughout the night you slept with him; you wanted to memorise every single print of him because it felt like you were living on borrowed time in that moment.

“___,” You hear him whisper.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, am I being too loud, I can go cry somewhere else if you need me to,” You cry out, sobs wracking your body, squirming and scrambling on the ground, rising to see an absolutely exhausted Min Yoongi behind you, holding a crumpled up piece of paper in his hand that he’d obviously tried to flatten, and you realise this is the most emotion he’s ever shown you directly whilst he’s sober and you feel like you’ve just earned the world, because to you that’s what he is, he’s your world.

“No, no, no, please don’t, I just, I heard you crying and I wanted to give you this, I thought you deserved to know, I thought maybe you could figure it out,” he passes you the crumpled up piece of paper, Red Velvet Cookies scrawled on the top in rushed handwriting. Looking down at the writing you realise they’re lyrics, lyrics about a girl who loves red velvet cookies, lyrics about a girl who he can’t stand the thought of living without, it confuses you, it truly does, because Min Yoongi doesn’t like you, as in you specifically remember?

“I know, I treated you like shit after we…you know, but I just wanted to let you know you’re always on my mind, though I told you that night and I’m not sure you even remember, it’s just I-” and then he’s kissing you, that same feeling of fiery passion burning in you, you can taste those stupid red velvet cookies on him, there’s no taste of alcohol this time much to your admiration, this is all him, and you can’t get enough of it, so you deepen the kiss, testing the surface waters, tasting the sweetness of him, the cinnamon and the sugar you remember tasting on him that night, and all of a sudden it’s all coming back to you, all of it, everything, the confession, the way he told you he loved you whilst saw the most intimate parts of you, everything and when you pull away, it’s like the most calming, satisfying aura of bliss settles over you both, leaning your forehead against his.

“I left you because I was scared, I thought you told me you loved me because you were drunk as well, and I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have slept with you whilst we were drunk, especially not when you were still a virgin-”

“Yoongi, I don’t regret it, I wanted it, even now, I don’t regret it, though I did regret when I thought you left me and you started bringing those girls around,” You told him.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to prove-” you can see the tears building up in his eyes, pain covering his face.

“I love you,” you admit.

“Even after the way I treated you?” He asks

“Always,”

“I love you more than that,” His adorable gummy smile appearing.

“Not possible,” a small smile starts growing on your face.

“Very much so possible,” He pauses, a small giggle leaving his mouth, “Hey, ___, wanna eat some red velvet cookies?” ah, of course, the God darn cookies that now meant more to both of you.

“Of course,” You say.

#bts kpop jungkook jimin army blackpink suga jin jhope taehyung btsarmy exo twice v rm bangtanboys bangtansonyeondan kimtaehyung parkjimin je

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hwrdtropened · 4 years ago

Text

Di Bawah Cemara dan Naungan Stasiun Kereta

“Are some things better left unsaid?”

____________________

You said you are so tired of love,

You said you are so tired of love songs,

So do I, dear, so do I.

_____________________

Kamis, di naungan pohon itu. Aksara yang tak berseru.

When you mentioned your name I was struck. Trains of thoughts were running through my mind, about you, about what people had told me about you. About your name among whispering among people I knew, about your story, about yourself. I tried to recall your name from my memories.

When I met you two years ago, things were so much different between us, yet so many things were so unchanged. Two years ago, you were that quiet kid who liked to spend time alone. The Javanese accent that came out when you spoke was very palpable. I saw a strain of surprise inside your expression when you heard of my name too, but until this day, I still have to yet understand of what are your first impressions of me.

When I saw through your eyes, through your gaze, I felt like I was staring at a mirror. When I saw through you, I saw myself standing there. Now I understand the sayings that we tend to like person of similar upbringing to us and of an idealized version of ourselves.

Your tendency to spend time alone by yourself, thinking by yourself, and being so reserved. It was so you and it is still you. Sometimes it is adorable, sometimes I just hate it. But later you told me, when you love someone, you should love them as a whole.

When I was alone at the end of the day, I was thinking whether you really liked me or not. Thinking about what you are thinking of me. Thinking about you, about layer upon layer that rests behind your gaze when I met you.

When I first met you it was your new life and my new life.

Pada hari itu aku melepas semuanya.

_____________________

Sometimes, I saw you walking in the distance, speaking to your friends and acquaintances. Sometimes we met too, although it was very seldom if my memory serves me right. Every time we met, your facial expressions always vary. Sometimes, I saw you laughed, while your facial expressions were teeming with a tangible cheerfulness. Sometimes again, I saw your expressions as kind of cold, stern, and tired; unwilling to mingle with your surroundings and you only greeted me out of politeness.

The things that I loved the most about you, beside your dynamics and character, was your selfies and your photogenicity accompanying it. I’m not going to elaborate really deep on this one, but let’s say that in my phone gallery, you would see many photos of yourself. Like a lot, and no, you’re not going to ever discover it, because well, should I explain it further?

_____________________

I loved it when you introduced me to your favorite songs, and about one by one you explained it. I also always loved it when we deep talked, in the middle of night, or under the wind and light of evening sun, and essentially, every single time. I loved it when you hit me up randomly in the middle of night, asking me to accompany you eating, working, sleeping in your place, or even contemplating and escaping from your problems.

Both of us know that you are a person with two sides. The first side is your reserved side, your quiet side, and your side which produces deep contemplation and thoughts. The second side is your extroverted side, where you greeted every stranger with a smile, where you laughed like there is no tomorrow, where your confidence are as high as the sky, and where you are everyone’s favorite person and center of attention.

Your laughs are as erratic as your demeanor.

_____________________

We are billions of beautiful heart.

I wish I had known the precise reasons why those feelings are developed for you. Two years are not exactly a night ride, but the feelings persisted, always lurking behind me through my own up and downs.

I have met many kind of persons in my last two years. But none of them are quite like you, none of them ever does. Although the inherent part of human nature is that every single of us is unique and different, I have unconsciously developed an unexplainable affinity towards you.

I dare to bet, that you do not even realize that such affinity had even existed in the first place.

Deep down inside, I’m always scared of the day that you might accidentally discovered my true feelings for you. I’m not ready for it and nor will I ever ready for it.

Deeper down inside, I secretly hope and — God forbid — pray, that after all this time, you feel and think the same way about me. I secretly hope that every night, every time you are with yourself, you think about me in a similar manner in which I do. Sometimes our hope as are dangerous as our desperation. Hope and desperation are the two sides of the same coin. One simply cannot exist without the other side lurking behind it. On a rare occasion, a flipped coin will end up standing revealing its both two sides visible.

None of this are logical, I swear.

Before I developed this feelings for you, I had always been cautious of, ah, being too attached to you. When I met you for the first time, I know that there would be something a bit different regarding the way I would look at you.

The way you speak, the way you write your thoughts, the way you have a look at your surroundings. The way you laugh, your peculiar sense of humor, your taste in aesthetics and music, there is something so unique about it. There is something so flamboyant about it.

Do you remember when I told you that when I intentionally develops a certain feelings for people, the first thing that I liked would be the way they see the world? The first thing I liked would be their quality and trait?

_____________________

I know you’ve been through a lot. I may not have realized it early from the beginning, but when I got to know you better recently — which I am still confused of why it had happened — I’ve realized that even I had saw your traces of hardships from the day one I met you.

I described you to my best friend — who guessed it correct on his first trial to whom I have a crush on — as dynamic and volatile. I specifically used the last two words not without any particular reason.

I’ve seen you at your highest. I’ve seen you at your lowest. What’s a human being without their up and downs, without their imperfections which makes them perfect?

I really wish I understand you really well; that when I sat beside you when things are not going well for you, the first person that you spoke up to would be me. I really wish it had happened. I really wish it would happen. But aren’t trust should be earned, instead of given?

I am sorry for everything, for not being a good friend, and for not being a person who understands you the most. I am really sorry for failing to receive your unconditional trust.

You said that you could give affection and love to everyone, but you could only give trust to one person. I just wished that it was me.

____________________

Took you like a shot Thought that I could chase you with a cold evening Let a couple years water down how I’m feeling about you (Feeling about you)

I wanna hold you when I’m not supposed to You’re stuck in my head and I can’t get you out of it If I could do it all again I know I'd go back to you

I know I'd go back to you

_____________________

I’m sorry for not being able to control myself.

Have I told you that being emotionally invested to someone is a risky investment?

I’m really sorry for being a burden on your feelings and thoughts after reading this. I wish I was lying and making this up from the beginning. I really wish.

_____________________

Sometimes, when people fall in love with their best friend, or their acquaintances, or their life long friends, they know that the only thing that they should be wishing for is that the people that they are in love with are freed from being burdened by the realization that a certain someone is falling in love with them.

Some people’s love are destined to be unrequited because they pray in different place of worships, and because they celebrate and observe the different holy day. Some people’s love are ill-fated to be unrequited because they are distanced by thousand of miles of separation. Some people’s love are ill-fated to be unrequited because they are distanced by the line of life and death. Some people’s love are ill-fated to be unrequited because their significant other are of the same gender or and of the different age. Some people’s love are unreciprocated, regardless of how profound their love is for their significant other. Some people’s love are destined to be unreciprocated, because their significant other is simply incapable of feeling the same way about them.

None of this are logical, I swear.

Were any of this are logical, we wouldn’t have a memoir to the story of love in every single romance song and poem ever written.

Love is anything but logical. You could fall in love with people who hurt you the most. You could fall in love instantly with a person that you just met seconds ago, and you could even fall in love with a person that you are not supposed to have a romantic feelings with.

_____________________

We are problems that want to be solved . We are children that need to be loved.

I hear you like someone. Good for you.

Just… Don’t be like me. Been in love with a certain someone for two straight years, and probably going to continue having this feeling for another good two years or more. Being in love with a certain someone while letting them being blissfully unaware of it is… painful.

I’ve lost counting to how many nights I spent thinking about you and why I’m not good enough for you. I’ve lost counting to how many morning I woke up to thinking why you suddenly acted so different to me. I’ve lost counting to how many times I’ve been thinking why I still have not earned your trust and full attention yet.

Being in love with a certain someone while watching them falling in love with someone else but you is… painful. I’m not a stranger to that, but it still hurts anyway. Watching them searching for their heart’s desire while I’ve been here for years —while being infuriated with them — is… painful.

I wish it’s not this complicated. But due to yourself incapable of feeling the same way I feel about you, it simply just becomes different. There is an impassable line and wall between you and me. A simple confession that you should be entitled of is instead have to be hidden for good.

I know that I should just forget it all, and I should just move on with my life and let you move on with your life. But oh boy, I simply cannot do that. Haven’t we agreed that feelings and desire always resists simplicity?

None of this are logical, I swear.

_____________________

Psyche had been right. Cupid was a monster. Love was the most savage monster of all.

Sometimes being alone and in state of denial with myself is the best thing that I could do. I like to pretend that I am like everyone else; it’s simple and it works. But aren’t curiosity mixed with a sense of futile hope are an inherent part of human nature? Sometimes I do just wonder how would it feel when I don’t need to conceal my true self in front of everyone I know. But I do realize it too, that that is just a wishful thinking, and would it come into fruition, it would be anything but a vain contentment.

Escaping with your feelings — concealing it and trying to pretend that it does not exist — is difficult. Sometimes, running away and forgetting all of it seems like the most plausible option. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

— Jum’at, 23 Agustus 2019,

______________________

For the first time, Cupid’s gaze seemed sympathetic. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say Love always makes you happy.’ His voice sounded smaller, much more human. ‘Sometimes it makes you incredibly sad. But at least you’ve faced it now. That’s the only way to conquer me.’

______________________

#i love you #unrequited poem #this is for you #featuring your favorite songs #and my favorite songs too #and my favorite passage from my favorite books #bcs it's relatable?

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butchlilith · 6 years ago

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something missing; a cheers fic

summary: "well, frasier, ever since i was a little girl, i've led a very disciplined, regimented life. but in the back of my mind, i always had this nagging feeling that something was missing. i tried to fill the void with achievements scientific awards, marriage to a prominent man. but deep down inside, i still felt empty." (or, in which lilith is a lesbian and not half as cold as everyone would like her to be.)

words: 5k

rating and warnings: pg-13. discussions of not-great-but-consensual sex, coming to terms with one’s sexuality. feel free to message me with any questions about specific warnings if needed.

notes: finally releasing this into the world for femslash february after allowing it to gather dust for several months. if you’re into taking sitcoms too seriously and writers who pretend to know more about psych than they do, enjoy. if not, you will probably not care for this. also available on ao3.

Lilith is a child when she first feels it: There is something inside of her, different from the others. The kindest will call this genius, and, when they do, Lilith chooses to believe them.

At this age, Lilith’s mother enrolls her in a dance course. The whole endeavor is frivolous at best, but Lilith never does quite unlearn the posture. At twenty-eight, she holds herself as rigidly as if the instructor is watching her still, drawing the other girls’ eyes to the line of her back. “You need to separate the body,” she would say, hand guiding arm and eyes watching legs. The habit is useful, so Lilith keeps it long after she persuades her mother to terminate her lessons. There is more to know, and Lilith cannot be kept from it.

(It will take eighteen years for Lilith’s mother to make another concession.)

Sixteen is the year that she learns to terrify, and the fear is just another award she collects. Twelve years later, it is no wonder that she is still being told to make herself easier to consume. The wonder is when she accepts.

The woman who offers, Diane, is soft in all but opinion, and her touch is no exception. Lilith has never loved a woman like this, but she has loved few women. She does not love Diane, of course, or feel any attraction to her at all, but she recognizes in her a potential Lilith has seldom seen.

(Dorothy tells her that she cut off her hair the moment her mother’s eyes left her neck, and Lilith should have known it then.)

Her hands are the critical detail—delicate, steady, precise. Lilith could use hands like these working alongside her. With the right training, these hands could do great things. Far more, at least, than tapping pigment on skin in imitation of a youth never possessed. When all is done, her fingers trace the edges of Lilith’s face, stopping just below the jaw, then tapping thrice on either side.

“Something’s missing,” she says, fingertips still light against Lilith’s neck. Lilith knows these words, has known them best in her more reckless days, but the touch is unfamiliar. A few more inches and she would reach the carotid, and Lilith knows that she will before they part; already, she can feel Diane’s perfume creeping serpentine in the air—not so oppressive as Sam’s cologne, but suffocating in that familiar, cloying way.

“My professional integrity, perhaps.”

Diane swats her arm, and even this is soft. “It is not!”

Foregoing the polite pause she would typically grant following such contact, Lilith distances herself. “Of course not,” she says. “I lost it the moment I accepted this absurd—“

Even her interruption is gentler than Lilith can bear. “Dr. Sternin,” she says, and there is a warmth even in this formality. “You remember that this is a rhetorical strategy. We’re not sacrificing an ounce of respectability with a little bit of lipstick.”

“It isn’t my usual tactic,” Lilith says, and Diane’s touch returns. Her hair, this time. Diane’s fingers have located one of the u-shaped pins securing her bun, and Lilith knows that they wait only for her permission. “But it would be foolish not to seize such a readily available advantage.”

Diane removes hair pin after hair pin, until Lilith’s hair is loose. “That’s right.” At last, she procures a bottle of perfume with a dull pink hue. “And, you know, a touch of mascara even offscreen could provide all kinds of advantages…”

Though not particularly grateful, Lilith thanks her. With this, Diane does what Lilith has known she would do all along, raising a freshly perfumed wrist to her neck. One moment, artery to artery, radial to carotid. The next, they are apart, and Lilith smells like her.

In this way, she prepares herself for the intimacies that will follow.

Lilith has spent eight years kissing men as nothing but the first in a string of pearls. Frasier is no different. He recites Eliot in the early days, another of his dead-end habits, and she wonders whether he knows that she counts the breaths in a minute, calculating how to proceed. There is a correct way of approaching such matters, and Lilith approaches all things correctly. The man in the poem is a coward, of course. It would take a fool to read these words in earnest, to find anything worthy of emulation, but Frasier remembers this only sometimes, and Lilith cares too little for Eliot to think it of any significance. She raps her index against his neck with each exhale and knows precisely how the evening (and all others) will proceed.

He will tell her later that this is the best sex of his life, and Lilith will act as if this comes as a surprise. As men do, he will compare her to the other women, and the list will be shorter than most, but Lilith’s name will be at the top.

For six years, this will be enough, and Lilith will embrace every moment he gives himself to her. In return, she will give someone to him.

She bests his most careful arguments in minutes, and with this Lilith knows: He craves nothing so much as a termagant. This is why he wants her. This is the only reason any man ever does. Few men do, of course, but this is of little significance; she wants fewer still.

The first time is in college, eight months after she meets Dorothy and later than the statistical average by several years. Positively correlated with achievement, negatively with marriage. Her mother grows impatient, her brother cruel. Being with him is the pragmatic choice, so it is the one Lilith makes. Four months into what must be a relationship, he interrupts her, smirking: “This is just what I like about you, Lil. You’re a challenge.”

Lilith supposes this means she is something to be overcome. With this, their romantic relationship ends. Each man who touches her later will construct a fantasy of turbulence as she plans her body’s every move.

It is like this that she finds herself married. It is like this that she finds herself a mother. None of this is so fast as it feels. Frasier performs that tired, requisite reluctance, first toward cohabitation, then marriage, then children, all so expected of his sex, and Lilith pushes him forward in the only manner she can, the manner he needs. She gives him ultimatums, tells him every truth she can express to herself, and convinces herself this is what a family is. She knows he has already convinced himself of the same. She loves him for this.

She loves him for more than this. His jokes are charming, when they’re not repulsively chauvinistic in one of his frequent if futile grabs for male camaraderie. He seldom uses the strength his size affords him. And sometimes, when he his willing to listen and she to speak, their conversations will be some of the best Lilith has ever shared.

He’s Frederick’s father. This is the most important detail and the only one that is unconditional.

She knows, reasonably speaking, that the feeling she identifies as love before Frederick is capable of any expression deserving of it is an evolutionary necessity. She knows that the traits she assigns to him in these days (cleverness, ebullience, kindness, curiosity) are little more than a reflection of her own hopes for him. But he will be some of these someday, and Lilith knows this, too.

So, she loves them both. She feels a love for them she has kept herself from feeling all her life, so deep that she understands why she has kept herself from feeling it.

(Dorothy kisses her when they are twenty-four and more accomplished than women twice their age. For just over seven seconds, Lilith forgets the second half of this. She cannot afford seven more.)

The love has such strength that even her recklessness returns. The day Frederick is born, she remembers at once the words she had buried: It is the happiest day of her life, and Lilith is certain that something is missing. One day, she will love them both enough to find it.

But recklessness is unsustainable, so she buries them once more. She seeks out missing things in music and writing and research, and she finds them. Frasier reads Freud these nights, fixated on that letter from Rolland, and Lilith entertains his talk of it. Still, the oceanic feeling of which he speaks eludes her, and she says so. With this, Frasier drags a hand from her elbow to her hand and cradles it there. She knows that he does this with the desire to unite them, but Lilith’s conviction only deepens: She is wholly separate from the world that surrounds her. The touch comforts her anyway.

In mid-March, Lilith spends three days on a retreat in Maine to finish her latest book. This is, at least, what she tells Frasier. In actuality, she has long since finished it; she spends three days instead visiting an old colleague in Maine to—in her words, not Lilith’s—reconnect. Ordinarily, Lilith would do anything to avoid such an invitation, but she remembers the woman better than most. Theresa. Polished, curt, well acquainted with Bekhterev. One of the few people with whom Lilith could bear to spend such time.

The first night is dinner, and Theresa describes her most recent publication in fifteen precise words. (At the seminar, years ago, where she and Frasier first met, he spent an hour describing his recent case study remarkable only for its utter insipidity.)

She invites Lilith to her apartment as they’re waiting for their check. Her unadorned hand on unadorned wrist rests on the table well past its midpoint, and Lilith supposes this means something. (On his fourth drink, he came far nearer to Lilith than she cared to experience and said, “If you’re interested in hearing more, there’s this truly charming little haunt of mine on Beacon—say next Friday?”)

Theresa opens the door to an apartment illuminated only by the full moon. “We’ve spent all evening discussing my work,” Theresa says, though they have not. She flips a switch positioned awkwardly behind the door she still holds. “Please, tell me: You’ve just done a study on women who pursue unhealthy relationships with men?”

Lilith steps inside. “I have. You intend to relate this to my marriage?”

“I do.” She reaches past Lilith, presses her palm to the door, and, with this, closes it. Then, “I’m mistaken?”

“Not entirely,” Lilith says. Theresa’s eyes move once down Lilith’s body, then return to her face. A small change, almost imperceptible, so Lilith gives no indication of having perceived it. “You see,” she continues, “Frasier represents the antithesis of these—you will forgive my use of my editor’s crude phrase?”

“I will. I may take your coat?”

“You may,” Lilith says, and Theresa does. “As I was saying, Frasier is the antithesis of these ‘bad boys’ whom these women come to seek in their act of self-sabotage.”

“And this takes but one form?” she asks. Ordinarily, Lilith would consider such questioning among Theresa’s best traits, but she knows already what she is suggesting.

Lilith does not entertain it. “Variations upon the one.”

“You’ve found this over four years of work?”

“Four years, three months. I’ve also had a child.”

“The book takes precedent?”

“It was harder to deliver.”

After a smile of a polite duration, Theresa asks, “Certainly of less personal significance?” The suggestion here is easier to deny, and Lilith is thankful for it.

“Certainly,” she says. “Frederick has already surpassed mimicry and is moving well into response-based communication. He should grow to be an exceedingly capable boy.”

“You’re well, then?”

“I am.”

“Happy?” The word is sharp even by Theresa’s standard. One could almost call it bitter—a suitable pairing, Frasier would say with that particular smugness of his, with the Zinfandel Theresa has already poured. Perhaps too much so.

Lilith nods and takes a single sip from the overfilled glass, for she has known nothing if not restraint, if not the art of letting one taste fill her up. Then, she has never wanted anything so badly as she wants her, and it is too easy to feign absence of intention with a glass of wine in hand. Of course, Theresa is above believing so facile an excuse, but she has a stronger grasp of courtesy than Lilith has ever cared to develop. (“I’m glad,” she says, though Lilith is certain she is not.) The whole thing could pass without so much as a word.

(She and Dorothy speak for three weeks about their misstep, Mondays and Wednesdays from one o’clock to three. It is excruciating, of course, to discuss feelings that Lilith does not intend to have, and more so to discuss those that Dorothy does. The second Wednesday is the most difficult; Dorothy says aloud the word that Lilith has been holding for thirteen years.)

But Lilith knows this: When she wants, she devours. She has been called cold more than her own name, but Lilith knows herself too well; someday her body will burn everything in sight. A single spark and the flames will spread for miles, eating up the world until she runs out of air. All this to say, Lilith cannot let herself want.

(Lilith straightens her arm and stretches out her hand, fingers together. Dorothy accepts the gesture but moves no closer, so that Lilith’s arm continues to reach toward her long after their hands are together.)

It is three hours to sunrise when Theresa drives Lilith to her hotel, and they have touched but once—a single handshake, fleeting and impersonal. There is a promise to meet again tomorrow. In her room, Lilith lets her hair from its bun, unbuttons her collar, and studies herself in the welter that is hers alone. Longing crashes inside of her, makes itself known in each curl of her hair, but Lilith has won. She wears the pearls herself tonight.

A betrayal on the Ides would have been a cliche, and Lilith is too well read to let herself become another tragedy.

On her return, Frasier fails to produce more than the tired facsimile of the long-suffering husband. A more impetuous Lilith would hate this about him, would hate that look of satisfaction he gets at the drone of a chuckle he receives in response. She would hate the transparency of its origins, hate knowing that all of this was in some quest for masculine validation his father never granted, hate more than anything that this makes them the same. But Lilith has outgrown her impetuosity; she is a mother now. She recalls instead the manner in which Norm speaks of Vera and wonders when she will attain the same luxury of absence when her husband chooses to deride her. A moment too late, she joins the laughter, then meets Frasier’s gaze, ice-cold, every bit of the woman they want her to be. He pantomimes suicidality, and a greater bout of laughter follows.

The moment they are alone, his breath encircles her neck, the humid suggestion of suffocating summer days to come: “God, I’ve missed you.”

Lilith counts to ten and empties her mind. She wraps her arms around his neck, closes her eyes. She says, “I’ve missed you, too.”

Lilith has long expected her body to betray her before her mind. Lately, she has been less certain.

(Of course, she has also written no fewer than half a dozen papers rejecting Cartesian dualism, but this is no matter.)

It takes more focus now. Lilith drums her fingers on her own arm this time. Four of them, rolling from the index out, a slower, steadier rhythm than their custom. Her own breathing, not his. She stops, recollects. Frasier’s hands move to her shoulders, pushing her just far enough away from himself to observe. He calls her some dreadful hypocorism, as if this could be an aphrodisiac even to the woman who did enjoy sleeping with him, and asks what could possibly be the matter.

He has not asked her this before tonight, and she has not thought to prepare the answer. For once, Lilith is without a plan. She tells the truth, or half of it: “We’re out of practice.”

“Finally,” he says. “A problem I can fix.”

Briefly, the image of Theresa’s hand flickers into being. Then, the touch of Diane’s upon her face. Then, a stranger’s to her back, small but certain. The guilt will last longer than any of these.

(For Lilith knows, as a scientist, that the mind is nothing without relation to the body. Were she to subscribe, as she had in her youth, to a more radical view, she could end that sentence five words sooner. She does not, but, still, as a wife, she knows that relation and oneness are wholly distinct.)

For once, for now, her breathing matches his.

She relearns the precision with which she was once able to discard the mind altogether—to study it, then say that it does not exist at all. She has softened, since then, since extolling Skinner above all others, but there remains a comfort in the acknowledgment of only what takes form in action.

They are content together, like this, when Lilith’s mother visits with a complaint. This activity is nothing unusual, of course, for Lilith’s mother often has complaints, but Frasier has resolved to make the visit different. As simply as this, both are entirely yielding to each suggestion that follows.

They’re meant to wed again—before her mother, of course, but before their colleagues, before the people from Cheers, too—and they do, for Lilith does all that she is meant to do, and Frasier has sworn to her to do the same. This is why she is willing to swear herself once more to him.

But she must first look like a woman must. The whole evening, Lilith has known from the first suggestion, is the question she never gave her mother the chance to pose and the only one she would fail to speak even had the chance arisen. It relies upon the knowledge she will never share. So, she answers it with certainty. She is happy to be somebody else for the sake of her family.

Lilith, of course, is no stranger to makeup. She knows, from the comments of seldom-well-meaning acquaintances, that this would surprise some. Even before Diane intervened, Lilith has known how to make herself beautiful, how to present an image of professionalism that is never expected of a man. Lilith allows her mother to do it all, until she no longer looks like herself.

And when Frasier sees her, he lets his compliment take the form of a question.

She smiles at him. He had always intended to resolve their relationship this way, Lilith knows. Waiting for her to find the strength for herself, prodding when his inaction was too little to spur her into speaking. A joke, even, that comment about her appearance. A play on the absurdity of the archaic gender roles that have driven her discomfort since childhood. She knows, now, that he knows her, and she has never loved him more.

For a moment, she intends to reenact their marriage as happily as if she had wished for it herself. Removing the makeup, freeing herself from the dress, pulling her hair into the bun she prefers—all such simple things—and her marriage would be hers, her mother’s question answered. There is not enough time for any of this. The music begins, slipping through the crack of the shut door.

At once, she and Frasier decide that the ceremony can wait. She reapplies her lipstick before it begins.

(As students, she and Dorothy would scoff over the very idea of dualism together. A category mistake, they’d say, as if they were the only two people on Earth to have read Ryle. There was always something about Dorothy that made Lilith feel they were the only two people on Earth at all. When they are together, a part of her feels it still.)

The next time she visits, Dorothy brings a woman with her, a postdoc whose shoulders slump with what almost seems to be intention. She is five years younger and—this is minimized by her deplorable posture—six inches taller than Dorothy, and, when Lilith tries to shake her hand, she gives half a nod without any further acknowledgment. With this, Lilith knows that Dorothy has told her everything. She is certain that not all of it is kind.

Frasier joins them only once, for dinner, before dismissing his failure to appropriately engage as a lack of familiarity with—the women at the table exchange a glance at this, surely confirming his misguided impression—girl talk.

“What was it?” asks Dorothy’s companion. Her name is Margaret, Lilith knows, but she is not yet so familiar to warrant the natural use of it. She grins, and Dorothy is transfixed awaiting her next words. Lilith has seen the look before. She was once accustomed to being its focus. “I’m having trouble remembering. It was you who began our conversation on aromatherapy, wasn’t it? And the local antique shops we might wish to explore?”

“Well, yes, I suppose it was, but you must understand—“

Margaret does not allow him to continue, and Dorothy grows still more enraptured. “The only subject that comes to mind is, I believe, our dispute over Romantic composers—Schumann, et cetera.”

Frasier here seems prepared to interject. Margaret, in a bold if unnecessary feminist act, elected to direct her praise to “Schumann and her husband” with an unfaltering nonchalance that forbade any further question. In the moment, it resulted in the same expression Frasier typically reserves for wine procured from the supermarket—in Lilith’s opinion, his fourth least flattering. With the wound reopened, Lilith is certain that he will at last verbalize his frustration, but Margaret leaves him no time.

“Then, there’s my overwhelming aura of femininity. All of ours, really.” She nods once more to Lilith, again unnoticed by Frasier. "We could do nothing more than recite the periodic table, but the simple girlish quality to us all would bestow upon our conversation the title of girl talk regardless of circumstance.” She leans across the table, still smiling, and, for the first time, pauses. “Was that it?”

From this Frasier knows that he can make no recovery, so, mercifully, he suppresses the reappearance of that tired expression and says simply, “My apologies.”

Frasier interrupts their arrangement of breakfast with an excuse for his absence the moment he invents it (“A dreadfully demanding case, this one!”). Only he feigns disappointment at the news.

“You’re unhappy with Frasier,” Dorothy tells her that morning.

“That’s very astute.”

Margaret looks up from her coffee, to which she’s added more sugar than any person could possibly enjoy. “It’s the money, isn’t it?”

“My prolificacy offsets the wage disparity typical between sexes, and I hardly indulge in—”

“Anything?” Margaret suggests. She grins again, this one unlike that she had produced at dinner. Lilith suspects that it is a premature gesture of affection meant to foster a sort of camaraderie between them, but Dorothy nudges her, and she takes up a new expression. Affecting some approximation of a transatlantic accent, she says, “My apologies.”

“That was funny,” Lilith says. “You know, I’m something of a comedian myself.”

They spend the morning like this, and, in these hours, Lilith waits for a feeling that does not come. She will think of the irony, later, when the feeling returns, but, for the moment, she must admit that she is without the impression that anything is missing at all.

She has been thinking of this, in the weeks leading up to the summer. The night before it begins, Lilith kisses Frederick goodnight, and she leaves the way her father did, without warning.

Unlike her father, she keeps close. Lilith remains unmoved by impulse; she has accounted for every possible emergency. For each of these, she is present. Even her planning cannot predict the ease with which she finds a home: Before Lilith can begin to justify her situation, Sheila has already offered up space in her apartment. The place is too large for one person anyhow, she says, and she’s laughing while she says it, reaching a hand to Lilith’s arm. She, of course, can mean nothing by it. They are colleagues, and to pursue any sort of relationship beyond the platonic would jeopardize the department’s function. It is nothing more than a much-needed source of light in the two-windowed apartment, no different from the piercing lemon yellow of her skirt.

Still, in her leaving, Lilith has unleashed something. However unrealized, desire surrounds her. She loves the feeling as immediately as her own son, and more primordially. At the realization, guilt grazes her shoulders, then passes; a poor mother is made in the suppression of the self.

She catches sight of herself in the bedroom mirror three nights later. (She has looked in the mirror already; she has no fear of her own reflection, but all of these looks have been with intention. This one is not.) Without knowing what observation is to come, Lilith’s shoulders are more relaxed, her face her own.

Lilith has stopped wearing makeup since deciding to leave, and it feels the way a more sentimental woman, or perhaps a woman with a less complicated relationship with her family, might describe coming home. She was taught, years ago, that the halting of such grooming is a behavior often indicative of depression.

(Lilith is not depressed. She has simply made, as she always has, a choice.)

Her colleagues cease asking her whether she is suffering from a particularly longevous strain of influenza the same week Frasier makes no fewer than fifteen presumably empty threats ranging from recycling back issues of Forced Exposure to suicide. Lilith does not entertain them, and he allows her to visit Frederick with little more in way of theatrics. Already, he seems to have grown.

Lilith has found much in her life easy, and it is easy, now, seeing him, to want to return. Of course, she knows that Frasier is a satisfactory father. A good one, even, and surely a better parent than she, even before she left. But she sees that Frederick has grown, and she knows that she is his mother, and both of these will continue, but she has chosen to miss both.

Frasier watches her with their child in a way he never did, when Lilith was the stable member of their partnership. Rather, when she participated in such a partnership at all. It isn’t something she wants to do again, in the same capacity.

Lilith leaves, again, and tells no one of the decision.

She attends a conference that month. She knows who she is here, and returns to her at once. A skirt suit, dark lipstick, a polite smile shown even (indeed, especially) to those of little competence. She watches presenters most closely in the moments after she poses a question. All but one hesitate. The exception—Nancy, her research on phantom limb pain—finds her later and offers a drink ticket.

“For a wonderful question,” Nancy says.

“I already have one.”

“I have two. I have an undergraduate assistant. Would you like his?”

“No, thank you. One drink is sufficient. If you wish to speak with me, however, you would be welcome to do so.”

Sitting beside her, Nancy gives another of her too-warm smiles. “I do,” she says. “I’ve been thinking that someone so good at asking questions must do some interesting work herself.”

They speak for too long. Nancy invites Lilith to her hotel room, and Lilith suspects that it is an invitation for something other than conversation. She doesn’t ask, but she accepts.

Nancy leans against the closed door of her room. The unpleasant warmth of her smile has dissolved. It’s charming, now. Encouraging, perhaps. Lilith counts her own breaths.

One. Five moles form a miniature Cassiopeia on Nancy’s neck. Lilith could extend a hand and touch them all, and not a single one would burn. The angles are wrong for Cassiopeia, if one is familiar enough with the shape, but the image remains. A woman chained to her throne, arms spread out to the world. She’s told this story to her son once already, lying under the stars that do. Like most, it is one of hubris. What is it that gives her reason to boast? What writhes naked at the water’s edge for her sin?

Two. In the myth, they are the same, the treasure and the captive. Lilith cannot become another tragedy; under more thorough examination, she suspects the monster would be Cetus no more. Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Cetus—all one.

Three. She could come home tonight with the intention of staying, come home and tell Frasier of the thought between his words of hate and love. He would divide them into clean parts, not caring that action could envelop it all. Ego, superego, id—all one.

Four. There is a truth in the way something inside seems to ache with the delight of everything primal, and Lilith has sought nothing if not what is true.

Five. Lilith has spent seventeen years closing her eyes to keep from seeking anything at all.

Six. Her breaths haven grown closer together, an undeniable manifestation of everything she has refused. She must recollect herself.

Seven. The problem is this: If Andromeda is the perfect and beautiful thing inside her, there must too be a Perseus. Lilith is the kind of woman to save herself, but she cannot slay Medusa; it is already too much in her nature to turn to stone.

Lilith discards the analogy. She wants. She seeks.

Consequences are for women with something to lose. Lilith has surrendered all of herself already. The last time she sees the red stain that spent years on her mouth, it sits on Nancy’s skin like a bruise. Her hips are the first place it has ever belonged.

The flames spread.

#cheers #lilith sternin #cheers fic #fic*#this is a cheers fic but if you haven't seen it you should still mostly get what's going on #i reference a few canon cheers characters but lilith is by far the focus here

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autobiographyofread · 5 years ago

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Old School

“A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”—from Old School, Tobias Wolff

When I was 17, my friend Nicole and I would wake early on Saturdays to stand in line for the bus outside the Sheraton Hotel. The T67 cost $4.25 to ride it from Teaneck to Port Authority. It was thrilling to enter the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey and emerge on the other side to the concrete slabs of Manhattan. At Port Authority, we’d buy large iced coffees at the Au Bon Pain kiosk, across from the Strawberry and next to the Duane Reade. Our coffees would turn from black to off-white from the large amounts of cream we poured in. Coffees in hand, we’d hop on the R train and ride it to Union Square, exiting the park at East 12th Street where Strand Bookstore sits on the corner of Broadway. Nicole and I would spend hours browsing the stacks of used books, of which the store boasts 18 miles. Our habit was to grab everything. Grab first, decide what to keep later.

As someone who grew up conflating “bookstore” with Barnes and Noble, I was enamored with the Strand’s lack of escalators and gloss. I loved the poorly ventilated three-story building and its staff-curated tables of books. I dreamed of moving to the city after college and getting a job at the Strand. (I now live in the city, but have yet to fulfill my dream of becoming a bookseller.)

I think of myself scanning the shelves at 17, and I’m reminded of my conviction. I was so certain that if I spent hours in the store, the right book would reveal itself to me. “Is there a right time to read each book?” asks the poet Mary Ruefle in an essay. “A point of developing consciousness that corresponds with perfect ripeness to a particular poet or novel?” At 17, I thought so.

The first time I encountered Tobias Wolff was on a wooden cart of books waiting to be shelved at the Strand. It’s easy to single out an area of the store as your favorite. It’s crammed with niche offerings, from a section of “Writers Writing About Writing” to a wall of colorful socks and pins. The section that houses the carts of novels-to-be-shelved has always been my favorite. I’m easily overwhelmed by choice, and the carts feel like a manageable sampling of the entire fiction offerings of the store. It was here that I found a $7 copy of Tobias Wolff’s Old School—a novel about literary adolescents at an elite boarding school for boys in the 1960s. If ever there was a perfect book coalescing with my life at the perfect time, it was this one.

I’m an avid consumer of all things prep school and moneyed academia. I love stepping into the world of ivy-covered brick and characters who worship poetry and grow pale from reading too much indoors. To my bookish self, this is the ultimate fantasy. Even after I gained entry to one of these elite campuses for college, and came face to face with the inherent flaws of these wealthy institutions, I continue to have a soft spot for the genre.

Old School is among the best this genre has to offer. In a story where serious students compete for an audience with literary giants—Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway—the meat of the novel is its interiority. Wolff captures so palpably the furtive desires that the competition sets in motion. The book opens, “Robert Frost made his visit in November of 1960, just a week after the general election. It tells you something about our school that the prospect of his arrival cooked up more interest than the contest between Nixon and Kennedy, which for most of us was no contest at all.” From these first sentences, Wolff establishes an insular setting, exempt from the noise of the outside world. The whole book is blanketed in a hush—the characters and the actions are not loud or showy. In fact, if you don’t read closely enough, you can easily pass over some of the more affecting moments of the book. One such moment occurs when the protagonist, a sixth former in his final year at the school, decides to type out Hemingway’s stories “in order to learn what it actually felt like to write something great.” Because as we learn early on, these literary competitions mattered, not for the honor of winning, but for the reverence Wolff’s characters have for the written word and the writers themselves.

The protagonist’s awe is mixed with desperation— “My aspirations were mystical. I wanted to receive the laying on of hands that had written living stories and poems, hands that touched the hands of other writers. I wanted to be anointed.” When I first read Wolff’s book, I was also in my final year of high school and hoped to gain entrance into the world of “living stories and poems” upon my arrival at college. As someone who spent much of high school as an observer, I had acquired a taste for literature and knew what it was like to be hungry. Sometimes a book resonates so deeply that it momentarily knocks the wind out of you. Is this what Mary Ruefle meant about a consciousness corresponding to a certain ripeness?

Just as Wolff expanded my notion of story, he expanded my understanding of language and what it can do. His prose crackles with exciting words. He conveys one character’s devotion to another by describing him as “spanieling” after his cousin like a loyal dog. In another scene, the protagonist is talking to a girl on a train and observes her “forehead faintly stippled with acne scars.” I immediately fell in love with the word “stipple.” It’s so precise and exacting, and whenever possible, I try to squeeze it into my writing.

At one point in the novel, the headmaster reads a Robert Frost poem to the students, after which he tells them: “Make no mistake, a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.” I believe this and am fortunate to have experienced this more than once. In many ways, Tobias Wolff’s book determined the course of my college career. I chose my freshman seminar after reading in the course description that the class would read This Boy’s Life, Tobias Wolff’s boyhood memoir. I entered college unsure of myself—I questioned whether I was smart enough to be there and was intimidated by my classmates. They reminded me of the boys in Wolff’s book, with “their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that it is already reserved for them.”

My freshman writing seminar was my very first college class. On our first day, we read a short story called “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, who quickly became my favorite living author, and who I would go on to meet twice after graduating college. Discovering a writer whose work I immediately connected with, offered me reassurance. I was unsure of my intellectual footing, but I knew I was in the right place. That class introduced me to writers who became foundational to my life as a reader—Grace Paley, Joan Didion, Virginia Woolf, Raymond Carver, and Lorrie Moore—all of whom I discovered because of Wolff’s book. I didn’t know it then, but that freshman writing seminar cemented my decision to be an English major.

There are so many books in the world. How do we find the ones we’re meant to read and then read them when the moment’s right? When I found Old School at 17, I was so sure that there was some greater mysticism at work pointing me towards that book. It’s easy to dismiss the romanticism of our younger selves, when we are silly and full of hope in an effort to find something to believe in. But it’s nine years later, and I’m still thinking about Old School and all the ways it impacted my life.

“Is there a right time to read each book?” asks Mary Ruefle. “A point of developing consciousness that corresponds with perfect ripeness to a particular poet or novel?” At 17, I thought so. And at 28, I still think so.

#old school #tobias wolff #strand bookstore #new york city #this boy's life #robert frost #ernest hemingway

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wellesleyunderground · 6 years ago

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Wellesley Writes It: Jane Ridgeway ‘09 (@janeridgeway), Fiction Writer and Teacher

Photo by Jane Ridgeway.

Jane Ridgeway is a fiction writer born and raised in Seattle, now living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the current Writer in Residence at the Kerouac Project of Orlando, Florida, living and writing in the house in which Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums. Her work appears in the Cover Stories anthology from Volt Books. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Oregon, and has taught creative writing and literature at the U of O, as well as at prep schools in California and Hawai’i. Interview by Camille Bond ‘17, Wellesley Writes It series editor.

WU: Welcome, Jane, and thanks so much for chatting with the Wellesley Underground! One of your short stories was recently published in an anthology, Cover Stories. What is the story about?

So, as the title suggests, Cover Stories’ mission was to anthologize “cover” versions of other short stories—so you take a canonical (or not-so-canonical) story that you passionately love or hate, and you riff off of it, explore some particular facet of it, or write very literary fan fiction of it, essentially. It’s an exploration of that weird and glorious phenomenon in which, over the decades, a song can be transformed through the different covers of it that are performed by artists with radically different sensibilities.

My story, “Peredelkino,” is a take on Isaac Babel’s “My First Goose,” a personal favorite and a story that definitely haunts me. Babel’s narrator, Liutov, is this gentle, nervous Jewish intellectual who finds himself embedded with the incredibly violent Cossacks and has to find a way to integrate himself to survive—and because he finds himself both drawn to the sort of sexy, robust glamour of the soldiers and terrified of their brutality. My piece updates some of the same conflicts that Liutov experienced to the era of the Soviet purges of intellectuals carried out by the KGB (which took the lives of many artists, including Babel himself).

WU: As a fiction writer, are there specific themes or issues that you feel drawn to? How do you discuss these themes/issues in your writing?

Grief, loss, sex, queerness, mortality, the sturm und drang of being a teenage girl, the way the past keeps popping its head back up throughout a life/a century/a place’s history. People who try really hard to be good but aren’t very successful at it. For some reason, religion, which is certainly not because I want to espouse any particular set of beliefs through my writing, or even something I focus on deliberately—I just can’t seem to get away from it, even if I try to. I’m really interested in the stories we tell ourselves about the afterlife, and how that shapes the way we live.

WU: As an emerging fiction writer, you’ve been accepted as one of four annual residents at the Kerouac Project in Florida. Congratulations! Kerouac residents spend a season living in Kerouac Project housing and working on creative projects. What are you working on during your residency?

I’m now one month into the Kerouac and have been using my time to generate new short story material! When I accepted the Kerouac I self-imposed some pressure to come here and bang out an entire novel draft, which isn’t what’s happened so far. The Kerouac is gloriously unconstrained: I’ve been given time to work on any project I choose, so I’m taking advantage of that freedom to play a little, write outside of my usual range, and create things that aren’t geared toward any particular publication, workshop, etc.

WU: How do you hope to develop as a writer during your time at the Kerouac Project?

I’ve been greatly enjoying finding my rhythm and discovering a creative schedule that works for me outside the constraints of my usual day job and responsibilities. It’s also been an exercise in overcoming self-doubt, because when I first arrived I was walloped by a wave of uncertainty and impostor syndrome. Through some combination of “faking it till I make it” and adopting some of the swaggering ego of the Beat generation that permeates the Kerouac House, I’ve found a way through it. (Kerouac himself said, “You’re a genius all the time!” which feels awfully audacious, but I think we could all stand to borrow a little of the audacity of a man who wrote his unedited first drafts on a single continuous scroll of paper.)

WU: You previously worked as a staff writer at the Los Altos Town Crier newspaper. How, if at all, has your journalism career informed your creative writing?

Working at the paper was one of the happiest phases of my working life! I loved having an immediate and local audience of subscribers with a clear stake in the stories I was covering, rather than a hazy sense that someone might read my fiction years in the future after I’d painstakingly revised for months, spent a year or so waiting to hear back from lit mags, then many more months before publication. I also love the precise, straight-to-the-point journalistic style. (Readers of this interview may notice that my natural tendency leans to the verbose!) Having experienced journalists and a brilliant copy editor to learn from helped me write crisper prose. Coming out of an MFA writing literary fiction, I think I also took the (unproductive) attitude that all of my stories were delicate, precious creations that I couldn’t possibly let out of my hands until they were perfect. Working at a publication that publishes weekly taught me to work with a much tighter turnaround time, much more efficiently, with less unnecessary psychodrama. There’s a deadline—just get it done!

WU: You’re currently teaching in a prep school environment, and have also taught Creative Writing at the University of Oregon, where you studied for your MFA. How, if at all, has teaching the subject changed your perspective on the act of creative writing? How has it informed your development as a writer?

I wholeheartedly love teaching, even though I can’t exactly recommend it to aspiring writers on the grounds of short hours or great work-life balance! Teaching literature means I get to spend my days hanging out with some of my favorite stories, novels, and poems, and really thinking about how to break them down for a young audience. It’s great to admire literature, but it’s even more useful to know how it ticks! On a more woo-woo level, teaching has helped me as a writer because it’s balanced out some of my edges and helped me grow into a softer, more vulnerable, caring, and patient human. Which is hard as hell, and not something I’m sure I would ever have gotten good at otherwise, because that’s not my natural inclination! I’ve always tended to be a seething ball of snark and sarcasm, and, untempered, that’s no way to go through life! The writers I admire most are all able to observe how much humankind can suck without losing their love and compassion for what a desperate, scrappy lot we all are. Teaching gives you great respect for people (young or otherwise) who are trying their hardest. Being a person is hard! We shouldn’t dismiss how hard it is, even when people disappoint us.

WU: Can you tell us a bit about your background in theater, and how this background has informed your literary career?

Some useful lessons of a theater-kid background for writers:

Better to commit to a choice than to be boring

Say “yes, and”

Don’t write any dialogue so stilted your actors would be embarrassed to say it

Read everything out loud after you’ve written it

I actually first started writing seriously after a playwriting class in my senior year of high school resulted in a festival production of my short play. Watching the actors and director in rehearsal, hearing my words, realizing how I could make the work better, was one of the most electrifying experiences I’d ever had as a young person.

WU: Are there any teachers and/or students who have been particularly influential to you?

A long and glorious lineage, starting from my absolute miracle of a second-grade teacher who made me fall in love with Greek myths, to my brilliant high school English teachers who were tremendously overqualified to be teaching me grammar and who told me I could be a writer, to Prof. Erian at Wellesley who actually taught me how to edit, to the teachers who caught me as a proper adult and really kicked my butt into writing things that an audience other than myself might care about. Also, Ehud Havazelet, the stern fiction father figure who permanently broke me of the ability to use the word “impactful” or read it without a tinge of disgust.

Hillger → Culhane → Doelger → Aegerter → Erian → Kiesbye → Brown, Bradley, Havazelet

WU: You have described your thankfulness to belong to a network of writers and thinkers. How can Wellesley students and alumnx build similar networks around themselves?

I love knowing writers and artists and readers all over the country. A lot of my writer acquaintances come not from my grad program but from an eclectic network of youngsters who were all applying to grad school at the same time as me, and joined forces to share information behind the scenes on how well-funded programs were (among other things.) I’ve always found networking in the traditional sense grotesque and repellent, but I think there’s a lot to be said for finding other people who care about the things you care about, befriending them with no regard for whether they’re currently (or ever likely to be) in a position to help you, and generously sharing information that might be helpful. Do your best to root for other people’s success even though sometimes you’re going to feel bitter and jealous because you’re a human and, like all of us, you kind of suck sometimes. Also, don’t be a dickbag. We all know who the dickbags in a given community are.

WU: What is your approach to self-care?

I take a very pragmatic approach to self-care that wouldn’t play well in a glossy magazine! To me, self-care is about doing the things that will make my life better, like doing the dishes I don’t want to do, taking out the trash, and clearing my inbox, more so than ‘treating myself’, you know? This summer, this has included writing lots of snail mail, going running even when I don’t want to, and long, slow, inefficient cooking projects.

#wellesleywritesit #wellesleyunderground #wellesleycollege #@wellesleyalumnx

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myanalyticalcrutch-blog · 7 years ago

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Pagan Poetry

Written for FS 464: Film as a Visual Poem, on September 18, 2017

Bjork is, like many poetic artists, misunderstood by a lot of people. However, there is a reason she has won awards and gotten media attention, other than her swan dress. She pours herself out into every song, and whether you understand what she is saying or not, you can feel the raw emotion behind it. Both the song and video for Pagan Poetry explore the dialog between love, pain, and lust. Bjork is telling us about her love for someone and the pleasure he gives her along with the pain attached to him. This pain is both wanted and unwanted, almost necessary for the relationship. The abstract images slowly become more clear, revealing different parts of Bjork herself. She is showing herself and becoming more comfortable, realizing what she wants before our eyes, being reborn in a sense. Love is considered sacred in most cultures. It is supposed to be the closest thing to a magical experience that you can have. The worst people can change for love, the true happiness makes them want to be better or opens their eyes to a new point of view. Love can also blind you from the bad things about your partner or the world itself. The shelter of love can both be constructive and destructive.

We witness the piercing of her nipples on screen. Body mutilation is shown as a way of expression and self-love as it is for many people. Many cultures even use it as a sign of honor or bravery. Whereas in many western cultures, tattoos, piercings, and scarification are seen as the sign of someone who hates themselves and others. It is seen as unprofessional and unfriendly, though it is slowly becoming more accepted. But it is also to resemble to piercing pain that love can be related to. The draping of pearls and lacing of the piercings on her back match the weaving of the messages and emotions of love and agony throughout the song. Her vocals are precise but have an animalistic quality, adding to the true emotion of the piece. The love and pain for her is instinctual human nature, but it has such a taboo around it, she must question if it is what is best for her. When her face is fully shown, she is smiling while singing, as though she is in ecstasy. However, as the song goes into a chant of “I love him” she stops singing on screen and seems to be in distress. This chant gives the song and video a sense of ritual, love and pain dialog ritually. One must always sacrifice something for love.

Many marriages end in divorce. I have always wanted to believe that love existed in the beginning or at least somewhere down the line. People are breaking the taboo that you must love one person forever. Love cannot exist without pain. She is wearing a dress by Alexander McQueen, a famous fashion designer, another artist. The dress exposes most of her torso with a mermaid bottom creating an incomplete wedding dress aesthetic. There are pearls, often seen as a feminine accessory, draped from her neck and shoulders. She is breaking taboos and bringing up stereotypes addressed to being a proper woman while she herself is embracing pain with love. She is opening exposing herself and the love and pain coupled with ecstasy and lust. The lyrics also suggest that perhaps there was an openness to the relationship at some point, or perhaps in her last relationship. This brings up the possibility that it started as something solely sexual and for her it developed into other feelings. It is often said that one of the most painful things in life is losing a lover or partner. She yells and shouts with a smile on her face that he makes her want to hurt herself. Shortly after we see an image of corset piercings on her back and blood around the holes. The weaving of these emotions is making her bleed and yet she will not let go of them because they also provide her with a sense of liberation from the bonds of social norms in relationships and as a woman.

People are highly affected by the emotions tied to poetry and music. Our lives are surrounded constantly by music and its effects. Some people argue that particular music can affect us negatively, while others claim that all music has a sense of liberation for individuals. According to legends, Orpheus was the first poet. He is usually depicted holding a musical instrument known as a lyre. In many images, the lyre is being held to his chest and close to his heart. It captures the soul of the poet, his love, his emotions, and all that he is. Music and poetry are to this day seen as way to ultimately expose yourself emotionally and express everything that you are and hope to be. Two important words that have risen from the lyre are lyrics and lyrical. These words are used to describe art from all genres, including music, painting, poetry, and film. All essential to an artist’s everyday life. Lyrics are words, often associated with poetry that are connected to a melody and are meant to be sung, not just spoken, however, there is a thin line that is often crossed between speaking and singing. Poetry itself is very musical. It is aware of rhythm, tones, and patterns. Chants and repetition can be seen in both music as well as poetry. The chorus of many modern songs is extremely repetitive and can evoke the feeling of a chant, especially when we look at genres like rap and hip hop. Rap is a genre that frequently crosses the line between singing and rapping and focuses highly on rhythm and rhyme just as poetry does, whereas other genres may focus more on the melody and the music.

As stated before, there is a thin line between music and poetry and they are often weaved together. They both deliver and story in a very strong, emotional, and intimate way. The artist is aware of all of the elements that go into his piece and strives to capture the essence of being human. This also applies to film, a visual poem. However, it is not a visual poem the same way that a painting is, it has literal movement and stillness contrasting each other. Film is a massive mixing pot of many different art forms. Greek tradition calls the poet and lyrical being, lyricism being strongly attached to passion. Plato had said that poets are enthusiasts. They are expressive, passionate and energized by that passion. To Plato, enthusiasm is a trance. Poets become enraptured by their subjects, they dig deeper and deeper into something and they cannot be pulled out of their art and passions. In The Republic, he says that poets should not be included in the city. They are radicals or have a tendency to embrace radical behavior and thoughts, and this is a danger to society. Poets abandon logic and twist language, they play with concepts like young children poking at dead animal carcasses. They explore depths of opinions and subjects that are taboo and to most people should not be thought about. Tarkovski’s poets illustrate two sides of this. His mad poet is loud and filled with rage. He is disruptive and subjects everyone in his presence to his truth, he scars them with the images of his death and the sounds of his final cried. The wise poet, however, uses silence to contemplate his message. It slowly sinks deep and has a chilling tone about it. He is caught in a silent trance while performing his final ritual.

In a sense, poets create their own language. Shakespeare is one example of a poet literally creating language. He betrayed the known laws of language and created terms and phrases that are still common in language long after his death. His impact on society and art is immeasurable. His plays have been rewritten and stories retold over and over. His plays often put people in the shoes of the poet, entrancing them and inviting them to think about the taboo and unusual. Topics of spirituality and sexuality are often covered in Shakespearean plays and poetry. Lyricism and poetry can represent the elevation of the voice and the gaze from the creation of language. As long as that language is lived through momentum and constantly fed with the energy of the poet and the audience.

Poetry embraces the duality of chaos and order. Many poems have a strict formatting while also exploring the chaos of humankind within its text. Poets whether through literature or image are obsessed with paradoxes and irony. There is a constant idea of the overlap between two things usually seen as opposites. Black and white are colors used frequently as a metaphor even when the concepts presented in the piece explore the many different shades of grey. Modern art often depicts Orpheus as a meaningful hero. He is seen as a representation of the human experience and what it means to be an individual. He is to thank for the many different forms of art and poetry that our lives come into contact with. We have access to so many different ways of expressing ourselves and sending a message to other people. We can connect and embrace other people and individual personalities through poetry while exploring areas of our subconscious we are not always familiar with. Raoul Dufy shows Orpheus surrounded by the sea and nature. In the image, there is a balance between the sky and the ocean. The presence of nature is a representation of how natural poetry is and poet’s deep connection with nature and life. Orpheus is at the center of the world and able to communicate across many platforms and elements. He can dialog with life and the spirit of nature. This lines up with the legend that his power of words and lyricism, he was able to communicate with the entire world, from the biggest creatures, to the smallest, down to small specks of life hardly seen or noticed by humankind. It is said that he could even make stones cry. This legend applies the idea of super natural power to poets.

As creators, artists across all genres adapt a special style so they can be seen as an individual and separate themselves from the works of other famous creators. They often have another artist that helped them discover their art, style, and passion. Visual poets are true visionaries, their gaze being projected with and onto others and sending out sparks of inspiration to other aspiring artists that wish to show the world their point of view. Orpheus’ vision and gaze was so powerful, that he could be seen as an extremely unsettling force. He could dialog with the Gods. I can understand why Plato would want to kick out poets if they could speak to the Gods. Poetry and visual poems explore spirituality and occasionally the spirit world itself. It is often referenced or its image depicted within poetry or films. Poets have a particular charm to them, making them dangerous because this charm gives them the power to speak with many different forms of life and even gives them a sort of power over others. Other people can be put into a trance with the chant of a poet. They can become mesmerized and led away from the dangerous safety of societal norms.

Art is a journey. Film, music, and poetry all take us on an adventure when they attempt to capture the Orphic voice. Their rhythm and voice often embracing a sense of ritual. Similar to how many parts of Bjork’s video do. The act of piercing is a ritual of adulthood and life events in many cultures. Even within modern western culture there is an accepted way to perform the act of piercing one’s body. In Pagan Poetry, she undergoes a journey of self-discovery through love and pain, just as is the poets goal to go on an extreme journey. However, extreme can mean even the smallest things. Because poets look at the world through the grey and in between areas, they do not always see the black and white as the most extreme. So many people accept that life if black and white that it is more extreme to walk somewhere in the middle. Though poets and filmmakers often explore the unknown and unreal, they also have to acknowledge reality. You cannot explore the unknown without first knowing what is known and accepted amongst the masses. Music videos bring poetry, music, and filmmaking together as a holy and transgressive experience. Artists like Bjork explore parts of reality and the subconscious seen as taboo through these art forms. She, as well as the filmmaker, want the viewer to also explore everything from the visuals, to the music, to the lyricism and words. Pagan Poetry explores the Orphic voice with its playful journey through sexuality, risk, love, and pain as one.

#film #film student #music video #pagan poetry #bjork #student #student paper #student writing #writing #paper #analysis #art

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gplewis · 7 years ago

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kiss me through the phone

When you come (cum?) You get a flood of Oxytocin and Vaze-uh-pressin (how do you spell that? what is it? i’m no scientist) The basic bodily and brain systems for attachment (What mothers get when they love their babies)

You might end up attached to somebody who doesn't fit into your life https://onbeing.org/programs/helen-fisher-love-and-sex-and-attachment/

“Don't have sex with someone you don't want to feel something for”

Yep!

they both just really need somebody to cry in front of

“what are you trying to hide?” is most of what we deal with

what else is there to do but live once you’re free? the words won’t be good enough to keep keeping words won’t be good enough to do

living is the war of being honest with yourself while making money from other people

The chairperson has disconnected The conference will now end

There is one we lose over and over

again

oxytocin.

The “love hormone,” as it’s often dubbed, can facilitate mother-child bonding and lay the foundation for healthy social interactions. Oxytocin, importantly, also breeds organizational trust—and, ultimately, a more productive workplace https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/forget-taco-tuesdays-karaoke-fridays-employees-should-celena-chong

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/65340-rumi-the-book-of-love-poems-of-ecstasy-and-longing

As husband and wife move down the funnel together, there is more to the experience than just chemicals released in the physical body… the mind, heart and spirit are all joined together http://www.feedtherightwolf.org/2010/11/brain-chemicals-in-healthy-sexual-act/

could really use to put some order to this

There's a cauldron of five women or so but they're all the same woman

the faces change; it doesn't ladder up

in my head in my Notes in my life which were and weren’t so different

now the illusion’s being traded away for a chance at something real

"Every man needs two women: a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph." — Iris Murdoch

"Sex is always complicated and rarely in harmony with affection." http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-great-philosophers-epicurus/

the problem is simply that we don’t see our friends enough, we don’t have meaningful enough work or strong enough relationships, we don’t love ourselves or sing ourselves like we ought to and need to

so we rage

A woman, thirty, does not want to leave her childhood home. Why should I leave home? These are my parents. They love me. Why should I go marry some man who will argue and shout at me? Still, the woman likes to undress in front of the window. She wishes some man would at least look at her. — Lydia Davis, A Woman, Thirty

If the person you're having sex with doesn't know about your bad stuff, your struggles and your aspirations, it's going to be disappointing.

"...her whole picture of herself was of her...seductive physical presence. She was not the most successful businesswoman in Los Angeles, but she was certainly successful enough, and quite in addition to that, she was...the main sexual presence in the office. When she walked into the office each morning, everyone, women as well as men, checked her out. She knew that. She could feel her sexual presence go through the place like an invisible chemical, like a hormone, a scent, a universal solvent." http://nymag.com/news/features/45938/

could I even touch it? would I know how? [a link to someone hard to redact] and what if the link stops working? what then? would I have to explain all this and to whom I am referring

"If you're lucky enough to have a pretty girl love you and share herself and sleep with you, make that your secret. The best way to spoil love is by talking to too many people about it." — Rip Torn

"The goal in courtship is often to prolong the chase, to draw out the sexual tension, to make them wait — and to enjoy this starry-eyed journey from strangers to dating to lovers to partners." http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/how-to-win-tinder/

"Drunk text me. I want to be the one you think of when you can’t think straight." - "Drunk Texts are Flattering" haiku by Claire Luisa

"Sex is a moment in which you are known and knowable. Whatever it is you desire appears from behind the veil of shame or fantasy or nostalgia, or sheer impossibility, and in its presence, you are revealed to yourself. Porn obscures this; porn is about the fantasy of the viewer, not the mixed fantasies, realities, and disappointments of the actors in the room." http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/06/24/sex-and-salter-2/

"The sexual act is in time what the tiger is in space." - Georges Bataille https://www.instagram.com/p/uZH1CDnIC6/

"Sex is difficult; yes. Almost everything serious is difficult; and everything is serious." — Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"The adolescent sees a sex world which is not human enough, merely masculine, which is heat, intoxication and restlessness, loaded with the old prejudices and arrogances with which men have disfigured and burdened love."

---

Before the horns fall away, here’s what the taxidermist teaches:

Because the velvet grows onto the hide we have to skin it and cut it, so nothing rips up and causes damage.

Being cautious that we don’t give it a big yank, use your knife and just kind of pull gently.

Go on—tap the skin away from the bur. See we boned it out.

For hard boned deer we usually just kind of but we can’t do that when it’s in full velvet or it will, you know.

Now we’re going to put a puncture in the tip. So, we’re not just hitting the one vein.

That’s what we want to see.

When Aristotle dissected the embryos in bird eggs, he mistook the spinal cord for the heart.

Anaximander of Miletus wrote that the first humans burst out of the mouths of fish and that we took form there and were held prisoners there until puberty.

At its root, taxidermy means to arrange skin. O love, how precise is any vision?

It’s also true that some whitetails never lose their velvet. Hunters raise their eyebrows calling them atypical,

antlered does, cactus bucks, monsters, shirkers, ghosts, raggedy-horn freaks, because they lead

long solitary lives, unweathered by the rutting season, because their antlers

are covered permanently in a skin that most bucks shed in late summer,

because their velvet horns spike and slope backwards, never hardening to pure bone,

growing ever more askew. A recent one slayed at thirty points was described as having

stickers, kickers, and a whole lot of extra junk full of blood, hot to the human touch.

Gut a body and we’re nothing left but pipes whistling in the breeze. That’s all the cassowary is when you slit her open:

She’s lungs wrapped in dark fur. She’s a full baritone with a soft wattle. There’s nothing in her casque but soft tissue.

Because it makes me want to turn away, I watch film footage of scientists

poking through the pink tendons, the reptilian claw of the euthanized casuarius.

When they fondle the sweet spot, a talon shoots out and stabs a melon the same as it would the appendix of a lazy zookeeper.

I had to cover my eyes when they severed the ancestral wing. Love, we are more than utility, I think.

Love, I know my body’s here when the turkey vulture comes out of the thicket, wings spread wide, smelling all of it.

When talking about how the brain imagines the body, neurologists use the word “schema” to describe the little map that lies across the cortex,

sensing all our visible and invisible parts.

Some phantasms about our bodies in relationship to gender and sexuality are idealized, some degrading, some compulsory, some transgressive.

I am using this embrace, Love, to keep us here in this perceptual field.

When I focus my binoculars, Love, I am as careful as a raccoon working its way

through trash. A soda can passes as the skull of a bird, an eyehole where somebody

drank some sugar down. Love, come close. Love, lie back. Love, lie with me here

beneath a bridge where the light falling on the water shimmers upward casting

shadows on the slats beneath. When you are here, Love, I am beside myself.

If secrets are prayers then maybe bodies

are worth revealing worth repeating

How much plumage dare I show How much down

Some days I am rich as the common garter snake

with more testosterone than you can handle

and the sweetest stench of pheromones

O small pouch O tiny nipple O lactating man

Or as the French say cyprine O Icelandic clam

And whales with lady hips And dandelions in the thick grass

growing stamens growing pistils O lion’s tooth However the wind

rips each part apart However we clone and clone and clone — Jenny Johnson, "In Full Velvet" http://muse.jhu.edu/article/538037/pdf

---

her erotic self was her fake self

in bed she wasn't real

we suppress the erotic self in life so it’s in bed we have to be true otherwise what else is there for a hot-blooded thinker to do but lie here awake and long—long for the past transgression we couldn’t help but fumble in our fingers in the dark—love I was your only hope until you left me home

I jam my foot inside the gurgling pool filter so I don’t drift away; I want to recover the proper place to put this but years tell me there’s no proper place I’m always getting out of order but the sun comes up and the world still spins

I always return to my instruments

"To get along, we all have to conceal our feelings, and to practice the cultivated, calibrated, pragmatic art of dishonesty; we call that professionalism." http://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/big-data-comes-to-the-office

“I believe sexuality is the basis of all friendship.” - Jean Cocteau http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4485/the-art-of-fiction-no-34-jean-cocteau

Facebook’s Last Taboo: The Unhappy Marriage http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/fashion/facebook-last-taboo-the-unhappy-marriage.html ignorance isn't bliss, it’s an opiate you never know how good you could be having it

never cry out loud smile for no camera

either way, we’re still ruled by cords

“In any relationship, the one with the power is the one who cares the least”

I hated hearing this, I knew it was true

the truth will break your heart before it sets you free but we were made to make it this far, you thinking this, me having written it

#love #death #art #poetry #philosophy #life

2 notes · View notes

northernjulian · 8 years ago

Text

"Lucidity Roses"

LUCIDITY ROSES ルシディ・ローゼズ

Dedicated to:

This poem, project, and visual representation of mental growth & beauty is dedicated to someone I miss dearly and think about everyday. My best friend Jaedin A. She helped me get through everything. From my first heartbreak, to my first day of suicide watch in the hospital. She was there. From crying over being abused in a relationship to crying over being locked in a hospital room. She was there. As I write this dedication with tears falling down my face like that day let it be known that I would not be here today. Mentally, and physically if it weren’t for this person. It’s nothing simple like I got an injury and she stopped the bleeding therefore she “saved my life” shit. It’s more like I couldn’t find my own injury but she stopped it from hurting by just being there with me. No matter the situation. Whether it was when I was 1,500+ miles away or just inches away she helped me push through everything that would’ve broken me. Thank you so much for existing in my era. Xox

This piece is heavily inspired by Jenny Holzers ‘Truisms’ poem. Her diverse yet obvious stanzas created beauty by the things we see and hear everyday. Basic knowledge formed together to create a intricate puzzle like piece that allows the mind to gain an insightful view. Thank you Jenny. Alongside being dedicated to my best friend Jaedin it is dedicated to those who did me wrong. Sorry to kill your vibes but no one can bring me down no matter how long they try. With all love and no hate <3 -Julian

WARNING

This is art. This is real. This is raw. I speak my mind and express everything I see and understand. This ain’t some politics-free Facebook post. Not wanting to argument with family members shit. I’ve been blocked by family members for the things I’ve said. My aunt blocked me after posting pro-black lives matter messages on my Facebook. Apparently not wanting to see my half blood brother on the news is too offensive. Wanting justice for innocent people was “too much”. Putting bad cops in the system they avoid was “too excessive”. If you can’t respect my existence or my families and friends then fuck you. This country has been hypocritical since the day it was founded, but overtime new laws and such have been put into the system yet they still treat us like the cameras ain’t recording, like the wounds ain’t showing, like the pain ain’t growing. So realize that this piece isn’t some school assembly script. This is raw and uncut like Trumps Twitter minus the fact that I’m not a damn idiot. Also while reading this piece you have to be in touch with the other side. By that I mean you have to be relaxed and at peace. Plug in headphones, white noise machine, open the window, do what you gotta do to be ready to see instead of just read. It’s like a deep song with curse words in it. You can’t listen for the words, you have to listen for the meaning. If Van Gogh painted Starry Night in an art class no one would fully appreciate it for the way it was meant to be. Art is three dimensional and up. It can be seen from many sides. Although all of them can be justified, when the artist explains what his two dimensional view of the piece is you gotta just sit back in amazement. The whole time I was writing this I had that mindset. This my canvas mindset. Knowing that each stroke on the white surface has to be better than the last. So here is my piece. My canvas. I hope you enjoy and understand.

Here is “Lucidity Roses”

— america is the biggest terrorist threat not isis all lives matter movement is a fictional movement anatomy is important for love astrology isn’t a science arian advantages are my disadvantages america escaped tyrannical governments only to become one abortion isn’t murder amendments have been broken atheists are people not afraid of death aberrant people are the future able bodied people are the most lazy abolish our current government abrasive people are common absolutism is always a bad idea abstemious people are annoying absorption of countries kills cultures acquaintance is a rude way of saying relationship adeptness is underrated altruism is key for humanity apathy controls our motivations astronomy is observable and beautiful amassing is dangerous anonymity people keep the truth alive aflame is the best way to describe America right now aptitude lovers are real aridity is rising

beautiful mornings happen everyday borders don’t stop shit branding runs capitalism blue lives matter is equal to all lives matters blue people don’t exist bernie should’ve won bravery comes in many forms bruce becoming caitlin was important for this generation baby boomers blame everything on anyone younger bombs are never precise boys don’t cry, men do tho bitches aren’t women bad bitch isn’t a compliment babies show us life in it’s pure form baptism doesn’t save every child of god baptism didn’t keep me holy bottles ease the pain boredom is a first world problem bacteria is everywhere germaphobes being called something besides your name is great blonde was album of the year black lives matter buying expensive things have repercussions baffling is trumps best and only skill burning the flag doesn’t help anything basketball is the best sport

crying in the rain feels good creativity is the key to a new world conspiracy theories aren’t reality cherry blossoms are natures physical form of love condolences are appreciated cancer can be stopped censorship stops art ceasefires never truly cease fire cultures are not to be mocked colors all have meaning codes control our superficial social media currently waiting for closure classical mythologies were once religions civilizations never disappear fully cobain was murdered ceasar once ruled the world callisto needs to be explored carbon dioxide emissions are real cherokee are the toughest natives christmas is definitely the most wonderful time chickenpox in america wasn’t an accident cold war was the scariest war columbus didn’t find shit captain avery was a genius camo clothes are never out of fashion crucifixion is over the top

dark nights only make brighter days death penalty is overpriced depression is real denying science and facts gave us trump don’t argue with science devil dances to inner city anthems death lurking in my thoughts lately da vinci was the closest thing to perfection drake runs our generation dogs are impossible to hate divinity is possible in our form diamonds are perfection doomsayers don’t enjoy their life dormant volcanoes are relatable dancing is art dinosaurs exist despite being held back we succeeded desperate people are the most sick different place this planet is nowadays dying is overrated dust shows authenticity dyed my hair for this rebirth defense is a form of offense dreams mean something doing thangs for myself deities exist in us

“every night fucks everyday up” emptiness is a curse everyone is beautiful in their own way exercise is a reliable stress reliever eagles are sacred earth deserves better easter island disappeared electromagnetism control our sense of direction extinct species show how precious life is endorphins are off in my mind epicenter disasters happen in our minds too egyptians had the smarts of unearthly creatures einstein got sad over things he didn’t understand too errors in our ways are to be fixed not ignored effective ways to love vary on the person elsewhere exist on our minds equality is bullshitted in our world eventually everything falls endings are emotionally exhausting efforts mean everything egos are killed by assholes education isn’t always important for a better world eternal life happens when you love life ethnic cleansing still happens today ethics are not negotiable eyes perceive more than the physical

fuck trump by the way fires burn inside flowers are unreal football is a life damaging sport “faults break into pieces” freezing points are breaking points futura is a great font fonts are key pieces for expression focusing isn’t something gained through pills fallacies run our political system futuristic ideas were once sci-fi ideas finding love is very important fire was once considered magic freedom isn’t real in america fresh fruits are being created as if they were artificial for the last time the earth isn’t flat fascism exist in our america fuel exist in many forms feminism is needed for this generation fake love is true evil false prophets are average humans fables are more than just cute fake news doesn’t exist only inaccurate news faithfulness isn’t difficult when you aren’t an asshole fanatics are just passionate, not crazy feedback is appreciated

guys can be pretty too generalization is the key to all problems global warming is real great barrier reef is almost gone gothic art is the realist art gambling is the currency form of lust geniuses exist in many fields generosity can go a long way geometry is the simplest form of math ghost exist giggles are always nice glaciers are separating glaring is rude girls glisten glitter beauty is magical goddesses are women goals should always be pursued go all out with anything you get some time for yourself gain respect towards those who hurt from things you can’t see great wall didn’t stop the mongols good people exist gasoline isn’t worth killing people over goodnight messages mean a lot good morning messages mean more gestures mean more than words

hells exist beyond our minds health care should always be free heavens exist in our minds hesitation kills motivation highly favorable people were once underrated homophobia isn’t real, being an asshole is homosexuality is just as natural as heterosexuality hogs represent rich people houses aren’t homes unless they’re made into one home is where the love is highlights of life are everything without a price high beams on a dark road how do some people live with themselves? hidden in plain sight things are extraordinary hello starts every conversation height is superficial hierarchy only worked for the pharaohs hire the unfavored heels shouldn’t be a beauty standard heavens gate is no different from christianity heavens gate is a religion hashtag save our girls happiness has me believing i made heaven harassment is cruel to humanity hardly anything is real anymore help is never too far away

i feel like pablo making my own art i’m just human isis doesn’t represent islam imperialism is the reason rome fell imperialism is the reason we shall fall immigrants made america i’m sad as shit when i’m alone i can also be happy as shit when i’m alone i see race i just don’t care about it internet is overrated and superficial inferior things are not always the problem invasion of foreign countries is never reasonable ice cream is good for the soul ignorance isn’t a bliss illogical facts are “alternative facts” illumination of the mind is inspiring imagination is the only drug we need islam has no relation to terrorism impossible is only a word infuriating people lead to a dumber generation infallible beliefs are close minded inhabiting foreign lands ruined cultures informing is not insulting innovation is suppressed in our world instincts are always right intelligence is uncommon

jim jones was the furthest thing from the messiah jesus was brown jean-michel basquait was our van gogh just kidding isn’t an excuse for your assholeness jealousy ruins more relationships than actual issues jewels aren’t worth the killing judges have sympathy journalists can be bias joy is a great feeling justice is failing in america judging others is natural jungles need protection jades are the perfect shade of green jewelry is a classism statement journey around the world if you can jump into new things don’t be scared jokes keep the sadness at bay jumble things are sometimes more beautiful than neat things jaunts are good for you jigsaws relate to our lives justifying racism is impossible judaism is the most neglected religion join the cause jackson was killed by a doctor jerichos’ horn is heard all around world just wondering if i’ll make it in life

keep thinking positive things and they will happen killing for peace is a hypocritical phenomenon kings never end happily ever after kind people are the most beautiful keep your family close knowing isn’t always understanding kkk is a terrorist organization kids bring the family together kanye is a smart man keep yourself your number one priority kissing is just as addictive as drugs kahlo is the best artist ever karma will get you kaitlin lives forever keep the bullshit away kaleidoscopes sparked my creativity kd betrayed his team keep it real keep the faith kepler telescope watches the heavens kepler-452b is our last resort kgb tactics are still in use kick back and get dreamin killing the innocent happens too often killing by accident happens too kidnapping is the worst crime against humanity

loving and sex are two different things legends never live life is a clusterfuck love doesn’t have a gender loneliness craves company lying is an insult to ones morality les brown motivates me lucidity roses is my canvas lucidity roses is life lust for life losing is better than not trying living shouldn’t be bordered by rules lying is an insult to yourself leaving incompetent people isn’t wrong or bad loving those who others don’t is perfect let go every once and awhile laws shouldn’t be bribed lawyers shouldn’t defend sick people lurking gets us hurt lies formed history last night stories are the best lately i’ve been feeling sad lyrics always have deeper meanings last doesn’t always mean something bad lines divide us like paper layoffs are necessary for a new world

majorities blame their problems on minorities mind over matter meditation is a mental workout mental injuries are worse than physical ones make america united again make your dreams a reality men don’t understand motherhood motherhood is a connection like no other “my eyes had a gleam once” my intentions are always good, my actions aren’t always tho meddling in others relationships is disrespectful mexico is a beautiful country manipulated by our politicians managing friendships is tiring morgues show us life after death minerals are running low mindsets vary on time sets marrying just to cheat is unacceptable and wrong mothers are responsible for our nurture vs nature thinking missing people who hurt you is ass-backwards “might've” has no meaning in the present masculinization insults the free spirits makaveli escaped to cuba magna carta is the way of the people mask show more than the person behind it medications should be free mcdonalds runs america

nothing happens for a reason nights with the person you love is better than anything nothing is as intimate as love never have i or will i say “president trump” narcissism got me through my depression nihilism is the truest religion ‘no more parties in la’ nobody pray for me! no means no never think about the past names always deserve a deeper meaning narrow minded people are ruining our country nikes is perfect natural beauty is the perfect form of art news stations are almost always biased nirvana is close by.. nagging gets you nowhere nowadays people aren’t living in the now newcomers deserve respect newcomers deserve recognition nazism is still active in america north is the main direction never love someone you wouldn’t wanna wake up with narcotics control the banks nasa deserves better never judge something you don’t understand

our system is corroded ousting exposes jealousy outfits describe our personalities overnight love is the best ocean needs protection oceans display vibes omitting happiness is brighter than any rays omega is more dominant than alpha order is tyrannical orgasms vary oracles saw illusions odd problems can become the most dangerous ones mental state is a number one priority oak is the most refreshing wood obligate yourself to everything you love oblivion exist only if you open the portal to it oblivious people are the loudest only illegal humans are those who manipulate the public our greatest internal struggle is wanting what we give old white people should have no say on racial issues obliterating countries doesn’t solve problems obnoxious people are common occasional personal days are necessary off days are the worst days offer yourself to the ones you love old times are gone, forget them

past civilizations were more advanced than current ones peoples temple was a suicide group political corruption runs our system police gotta stop killing us pro-black isn’t anti-white philosophies vary on mindsets philosophers were once seen as irrelevant picassos’ rose period is my life season political parties are for small minded people politics separated my family permafrost love is gonna be a visual perfect people only exist when you become in love with someone pesticides are just as bad for humans than bugs push through the tough shit pulling someone closer is a form of intimacy purple is a sexual color purest forms of intimacy are decided by lovers please love someone before you leave this planet peaceful protest are always manipulated by fox news party whenever you can for however long you can pretty isn’t a girl only word panama was split for financial reasons peaks are the top of our lives pastor keeps the followers with hope paparazzi got no respect please don’t stop living

quit slut shaming sexually active people quit calling every female a bitch quality over quantity all the time questions without answers are possible quiet people are a blessing quotes were unappreciated at their time qualm thoughts are stressful quantum mechanics are the future qualified people can still be stupid queens don’t need kings quickly doing things is sloppy quicksand is the physical metaphor of depression quilts are comfortable canvases quixotic love is the best love quizzing us on things we don’t know is irrational quotation marks aren’t needed for the words you say quran isn’t evil quran is equal to the beautiful quarantining sad people is cruel quarantined orcas need to be freed #fuckseaworld quite a few good things in life we don’t appreciate quitting is never the answer quit fucking with people who don’t care for you queer isn’t an insult question everything you don’t understand quasars represent underdogs

reverse racism isn’t real respect your elders those who respect you roses show more beauty than we can comprehend “respect existence or expect resistance” rest in peace selena respect for women shouldn’t be gained through knowing one remember the good days every chance you get real friends make time for you release week was dope reality is distorted raw art is the truth we need ranting proves you can think random compliments are the best compliments reading puts you in another world reducing stress is impossible in our world refusing facts isn’t always because ignorance remember that you matter runaway with the person you love runaway is also a perfect song, thanx kanye roses are red roses aren’t dead riding with your friends is peaceful reintroducing people is lovely radiation levels are unnatural radical ideas are barbaric rapist don’t deserve a casket

“special shoutout to the icon dynasty slip and slide records” science is the forerunner of every subject self control is a uncommon blessing support planned parenthood support stem cell research sexism is at an all time high sadness has me believing i belong in a sanitarium sexual fantasies are normal scientist don’t lie, politicians do stop being scared secrets are esoteric seducing has to be wanted school makes me feel stupid sadness dissipates when we begin to live smoking kills shea made me sad shan made me happy strong people exist satanist aren’t bad people say no to *bad* drugs seeing old friends is refreshing sad and mad emotions ruin lives safe sex is rare saints were once sinners sinners were once saints see what i’m saying?

tranquility is achieved through our minds the meaning of life is happiness thank you for the inspiration frank o. tupac is still alive for me the world is ours taste of lips is a drug the only thing we need is love tattoos tell stories that words can’t “to die without leaving a corpse..” thank the universe or your deity everyday “torture is barbaric” the day is as only as bright as you make it tired is a real excuse for not doing things trading your soul for something always ends bad trendsetters aren’t original treat everyone you meet with respect trying to educate the ignorant is pointless tattoos at a young age show defiance tattoos don’t look gross when you get older tips are small but meaningful today is the beginning of a new life. timid people are usually the brightest tacky clothes are fun tell people how special they are tell your deepest secrets to no one take it easy

uncles’ are usually pieces of shit..lookin at you lencho using someone for sex is inhumane ultimately what defines us is our actions, not words u is the saddest song ever umbrellas are cliché understanding someone helps them get better unfortunately we can’t stop time under pressure we can sprout unite the world together again unlikely doesn’t mean impossible unless you’re dead nothing can stop you unusual organisms see us as unusual too urges can be handled uplift everyones spirits unnamed sources are the realist sources untruth the lies using the system to beat it is smart unnecessary comments don’t have to be necessary upload your experiences update your friends as much as possible urgent care is a sad place universe is in us us is nice to say uttering words isn’t always the best idea urban legends are fun to read about until we stop fighting we’ll never start loving

violins are the most beautiful instrument vibrant things give me happiness videotapes are ancient versatile mindsets are necessary very important people are not strangers with money vikings found america vivid dreams are future scenes vaccines don’t cause autism voice your opinion no matter where you live volume never seems loud enough version one is draft like vintage art is overrated verbal abuse is the worst versions show both sides view life differently vote based off personality not political party valleys are scary versace is godlike voices are deceiving vaults are examples of paranoia vice versa situations are just normal situations very good people are always unheard of veterans shouldn’t be veterans venture into the wild visit family as much as you can versus the world

would trump let jesus in our country? women deserve better “wishing things away is not effective” quote jenny we face the inner struggle of the penitent and impenitent thief war on drugs is a waste of time and money wes lang is the descendant of basquait women can hurt men too whiners can’t be choosers winning is just as scary as losing wearing all black is beautiful wanting what you can’t have is cruel would you like you? wishing for the best holds back the best watching people be themselves is interesting why do they keep killing us? when’s tranquility gonna reach us welcome new people like family weddings are a form of art why questions will never be answered why are we here? why do we battle things we can’t see? why do good things happen to bad people? why do bad things happen to good people? why is there a why if it can’t be answered? willpower is yours winning is the only option

xenophobia is wrong not matter how trump puts it xenophile is a lover for high class things xerophytic people are the strong yet depressed humans xanax are for those sad people xeriscape was created for another dustbowl xerothermic weather isn’t normal xenobiotic compounds are even antihuman xerophile organisms are relatable xenogeny is the creation and start of life xat have spiritual energies xenocide is happening to our own species xenoepist think you’re a xenoepist xenomorphs exist xeronisus happens when you don’t love that person xickovit of this country xox means a lot to me x’ing out the bad people like tic-tac-toe xanthippe was the opposite of socrates xenial countries are declining xenocracy founded america xenophobia is runs our country right now xenophobic is like homophobic, so it’s not real xanax are bad for you xenophiles need to know their boundaries x marks the spot xoxo

you don’t have to be in love to make love yelling should only be for sports events years pass like the seasons year-round happiness is important yikes at our country yearbooks shouldn’t be the only time we appreciate each other yearning is a sin but an understandable one yearlong relationships are rare yellow is the most vibrant color y chromosome organisms have no right over double x organisms y chromosome doesn’t excuse being disrespectful yellowstone is gonna explode soon yes is all you need to hear for consent ying yang symbol is life in simple terms yogism is the purest philosophy you can’t expect the unexpected your only priority is you you’ll never know what someone else is going through you are loved you are noticed you are always on someones mind you deserve better you can succeed you can inspire you will be happy you are you

zenith empires eventually fell zero was created by the mayans zodiac signs are bullshit zygotes show us how related we are zeal mindsets are important for our generation zelo was nikes brother zeal mindsets can be dangerous zero first world problems are important zuckerberg made billions off our generation zirconia isn’t diamond zero hour is the best time of the day zeta is an unearthly letter zev (zero emission vehicles) were the future zigzagging down a dark road zika needs to be defeated. zionism fucked over jerusalem zodiac killer was found zoos’ need to be more natural zebra stripes are mesmerizing zealous juries can free the criminals zaddy turns no one on zoning people out is risky zombies is who our voting system was built for zoetropes still amaze me zero stars show in the daytime zero people can talk shit about me now —

Everything in this project has meaning. Everything. I would stay up til the early hours of the morning just thinking and trying to tell my story while correlating it with symbols and clues. Notice how there is every letter in the alphabet on here twenty six times? That was a tribute to Holzers style she had on “Truisms”. Notice how every letter is lowercased? Also a tribute to Holzer. The cover art, hand drawn by the way, the cover is a skull with three roses coming out of it. Those three roses represent the three loves of my life. From best to worst going left to right. The words above them show what they gave and introduced me to. Love, lust, and lorn. All of these things are apart of life. The three emotions we all are controlled by in life. The three things that can break us from ourselves. That’s why the skull is there. After all those things I had to endure I felt nothing but dead inside. On the outside it was visible too. From the days my mother would ask me what’s wrong to the days I would break down at school. It was visible. I seemed dead on the inside. They say nothing is as dry as the bone, but I found a way to push through. My rebirth allowed me to show the world I am still here. After my battles with love a rose grew, after my battles with lust a rose grew, and even after being beat down and almost held away from the light that helped me grow, a rose grew from lorn. I am still recovering from these three things. The roses vary in stages because of this. Lorn was the most impactful on me hence why the rose is the smallest of the three. It is taking time to heal from these things, but I am reborn. Three things that have claimed my last three years. From the day after middle school ended where I was in my room all day crying because I never took a chance at shit to the first day of suicide watch. These are my past lessons. This is my life. Thank you all for allowing me to fully expose this. I hope that this can inspire you to become the best you. I hope this can inspire you that no matter how crazy, lonely, and heartbroken you feel you’re never alone on this crazy ride we call life. Thank you very much. Xoxo -Julian

P.S – Three is my lucky number

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