#making new poems about theo from lines that made him think of them

[justalittlechocolatemilkshake]

Oh my god I’m reading The Pairing and did not know we would get dual POVS.

Kit is breaking my fucking heart rn.

[lesbian-helen-gansey]

10 Favorite Books of 2021

Making this list made me realize that I read a lot of books this year that I just felt meh about, which was kind of disappointing, but these are the really good ones! About 70% of what I read was fiction, and about 70% were written by women. This is also where I once again add the caveat that I’m terrible at summarizing books, but I do have good taste. You just have to trust me. 

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This book is about four celebrity siblings who are hosting the party of the summer, and the narrative takes place over the course of the party as everything starts to go wrong. It’s my favorite kind of book in that it’s about people’s relationships with each other, which all books are kind of about, but this one especially. The bond between siblings, the pressure each of them feels in their role in the family, how can you be responsible for each other when no adult has been responsible for you etc. Calling all Lynch Siblings Lovers. (Adult fiction)

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

This is not a feel good read. This book made me very sad, but Alan Hollinghurst is one of, if not my favorite writer, so it’s worth it. I’ve never read another author that describes the specificity and complexity of human emotion the way that he does. This book takes place during the 80s in England, and is about Nick, a gay man, who moves in with his friend’s wealthy conservative family. It follows his experiences over the course of several years of trying to exist as a gay man in this time and find meaningful relationships with people without being able to be very open with any of them. It’s very character driven and is about Nick’s emotional experience as he tries to figure out who he is and how he fits in the world. Hollinghurst is such a talented writer and the book really shows off his craft. (Adult Fiction)

The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee

This is a super interesting book about how structural racism in America has led to the country’s economic inequality. It talks about the history of a variety of policies including housing and social safety programs and how people would rather destroy these programs entirely than see Black people benefit from them. These is really accessible nonfiction as it’s very narrative based. (Non-fiction)

The Crying Book by Heather Christle

If you love the web-weaving style posts on this website, than this book is for you. This book is all about crying -how we cry, why we cry, what it means to cry-, and Christle weaves together science, philosophy, and her personal experience into something that reads both like a personal essay and an extended poem. It’s really creative and beautiful. I don’t think anything else like it exists. Every page had a quote I wanted to remember. (creative non-fiction) 

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

A group of old college friends take their annual New Year’s Eve trip to a secluded hunting lodge. It seems like their personal drama and the secrets they’re keeping will be enough drama to keep them busy for the trip, until someone is killed. A snowstorm means no one can get in or out of the lodge. New secrets, old friends, someone dead, no help on the way. (Adult fiction)

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

It seems almost unfair to say I read this book In 2021 when what really happened was that is took me over a year to get through this audiobook, but I did finish it in 2021, so I’m saying it counts. This book is about a boy, Theo, whose mother dies in a terrorist attack at an art museum. It follows him trying to come to terms with this trauma as he becomes an adult. He also stole a painting, which is both the entire point and not the point. This book is very much an exercise in craft with extensive descriptions that Tartt can only get away with because she is such a talented writer. A book that’s worth the effort. (Adult Fiction)

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Another TJK! This one is about a famous movie star, Evelyn Hugo, during the golden age of Hollywood. She is looking back on her infamous life and career through the lens of her seven different husbands. I cried more reading this book than any other in recent memory, but in a good way, obviously. I agree with all the popular praise of this book that talks about how vivid Evelyn’s life seems, that it seems like she must have been a real actress. For all the times I got emotional, this was a really fun read, mostly light and easy. (Adult fiction)

The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

This year I got really into domestic thriller type books, I think in part because they tend to be quick and easy, and they also really center around the lives of women. This book is about a young mom, Sophie, who recently moved her family to a small town in Texas. Her new life isn’t what she thought it would be, and she becomes fascinated with the gorgeous and wealthy Margot. As her friendship obsession with Margot becomes more intense, she begins to spiral into a world of sex and violence she’s not sure she can get out of, or even really wants to. (Adult Fiction)

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Steifvater

This was both a very thoughtful and heart warming book that made me very happy. I just thought it was the sweetest thing, and I really loved it. It’s about a family who preforms miracles and the people who seek them out. After a miracle goes wrong for one of their cousins, they reconsider if their traditions are as true as they think they are. Also, people fall in love. Maggie Steifvater has such a knack for creating complex, loveable characters, and this book is no different. (young adult fiction)

The Girls are All so Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

This is by far the craziest book I read this year. If you want to read about girls being evil to each other and villainous behavior, this is the book for you. Told in two timelines, Amb is attending her college reunion and is being threatened with revenge for what she did her freshman year. It’s about the pressure women feel to compete with each other and the way that projecting your insecurities onto others can make you into the vilian in the story really quickly  (Adult Fiction, cw sa)

(I feel like everyone on here already knows I loved Call Down the Hawk and Mister Impossible, so It feels redundant to put them on the list, but those too!!)

[rokutouxei]

the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 21 OF 22

—The heartbeat is actually the sound made by the heart valves closing. If you, my love, ever hold a stethoscope to my chest I will tell you to listen for the silence in between. What is and what will always be yours is the sound of my heart finally opening.

- "Letter to the Editor", Andrea Gibson.

--

interlude ii

--

In the span of time between understanding and acceptance, Theo half-writes a million letters, all of them suffering the same kind of fate: undelivered. The email gets deleted, the text erased, the sheet crumpled, set on fire. There are too many words he doesn’t have the courage to say, and fuck, he’s not a literature major, after all.

He’s only the arrow shooting forward, not the bow pulling back towards itself.

But every second he spends lost in the memory of her leaves him splitting open, so for the first time in what feels like centuries, he unfolds what he’s kept in his heart the size of his clenched fist. Allows its beating space to unravel. And when he doesn’t have the vocabulary to put it into words himself, he borrows—borrows from others until he finally finds the ones that will feel just right tell.

Until they’re finally just right to tell.

The first letter he ever writes her, he composes outside the gallery of his brother’s exhibit, on the opening day. He’s crouched on the stone steps with a book in his hand, a little poetry book Arthur had dropped by for him earlier that day. For what, the bastard refused to say, but he had that look on his face that Theo hates: that Arthur knows exactly what he’s doing it for.

The first of his letters are spiteful, the words he borrows barbs, promises he doesn’t intend to keep when he rewrites,

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year

onto a sheet of scratch paper, one he ultimately throws into a bin before he’s even felt like he’s begun writing anything.

He gathers his heart a little closer for the second one, highlighting a verse in shaky yellow while he’s on a bus ride out of town, on the exhibit’s closing day.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

But it is not enough. And even after that, there are an innumerable number of letters that still are not enough. He borrows from everyone he’s learned from her: Shakespeare, Frost, Whitman, Dickinson; he borrows from new names, Allan Poe, Silverstein, Neruda, Keats, Siken; he borrows from poetry, from fiction, from plays. From philosophers, from writers, from artists. The words never seem to be enough to cross the gap between what he’s said and what he should have.

He writes the ten-thousandth letter with his heart beating in his chest so loudly he can barely hear his breath,

And I lean down towards you with muscle and wing, as if to a grave stone, (I put the years to sleep)

my lips seek yours... like spring.

longing, the sear of it, the idea of having touch so warm under his skin the world feels all too cold. He misses her like he would a lost limb. He reads the poem over, and over, and over again until he cannot deny it, and when he does not have the will to deny it he sets it on fire, instead.

Arthur asks him why he’s making it so much harder on himself, asks him why he’s putting himself in all this agony for nothing—Arthur talks like he knows everything. And maybe he does, the fool that he is. “Just call her,” the flirt says, “Call her from my number, send her a message—" But Arthur doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t know what it felt like in that rooftop, the words hanging in between him and her, unsaid, said, told in their heads—but never out loud, not enough to make it come to life.

To make it real.

To make it seem like Theo isn’t just writing a story in his head.

One where she’s only an unwilling participant.

Letters are the one thing Theo can hide behind, besides poetry. He can pour his entire heart in that little sheet of paper, tell her all that he wanted to but never could—send it away, and then not have to wait, expecting a response. He considers it the same as writing a message, stuffing it in a bottle, and then throwing it out in the open sea. It would be great if she finds it. It would be great if she’s moved enough by it that she writes back, that she forgives him, that she continues to wait for him even if she’s already so far away.

If only he could get it right.

The millionth letter doesn’t make it past his desk. He hears the poem from a phone in the bookstore: two literature majors reading from a book on the shelf, reciting the lines, Theo barely hears it over their gasps, but when he does he scrambles to put it into writing, thinking, this is it, maybe this is the one that’ll get me across, says,

It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food.

takes the pen in his hand and nearly tears the page when the poets say:

It well may be. I do not think I would.

Theo is on his headphones for the rest of the afternoon, hiding in the stockroom stacking books.

He sits and negotiates, negotiates, negotiates with himself over and over again, like this was a case, like this was a business deal, instead of something else, something that’s less rigid, less in-boxes, one without protocol. Arthur tries to talk him into it. Vincent tries to talk him out of it. In, out, of what, Theo doesn’t know anymore, their voices fading into the back of his mind when he begins to really think about this.

About her, about her hands.

About his.

Sometimes, at night, in bed, before I fall asleep, a poet once wrote, I think about a poem I might write, someday, about my heart.

Theo does the same.

Much to his dismay, however, the world does not fall in around him, does not close him off from the outside world no matter how hard he tries, no matter how much it seems like that’s what ought to happen. The semester rolls on. The exams are still hard. The Halloween Party is still the same talk of the university as it did a full year ago, like the world hadn’t turned upside down for him since then.

The universe had even granted him the most effective way to wallow in his pain, the new girl in their little friend group (the one he was only in because of her) whose heart was a mirror of the girl he’d loved. Why is it that those that do so poorly in romance tend to flock together like recognizing the uneven parts of themselves? She is drunk and talking about someone else, but when she speaks about letters the same way she used to, something in Theo’s heart cries out.

Too bad he still doesn’t have the words.

The closest Theo gets to what he wants to say comes in the form of old memories, a scribble of a haphazardly written note on a piece of clean café napkin, in her handwriting, no, there’s no mistaking it. Heart by heart, Louise B written in familiar cursive. A note from a lost time slipped in a returned book, perhaps on purpose, perhaps on accident. He turns the search terms over and over until he finds it, a rush of air exiting his lungs when he gets to the end:

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see The wharves with their great ships and architraves;   The rigging and the cargo and the slaves On a strange beach under a broken sky. O not departure, but a voyage done! The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps   Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

But he doesn’t hasn’t ever had it, not since she’d left, so he doesn’t send it.

Theo doesn’t cry. There is no reason to, he thinks to himself, nothing to be upset about, not when it’s him holding himself back, when this was all his fault. He only sits quiet, repentant. He doesn’t make any mention of her, and when she is mentioned, he doesn’t say a word.

What worth are words now?

This goes on for weeks. And it seems like an eternity later when Vincent catches him sitting in the dining room with that same idle look on his face, that same dull expression, he steps into the light of the older brother Theo has always seen him to be, the older brother he’s always hoped to be—and puts a hand on the shoulder of his lost younger brother, eager to lead him home.

“Theo?”

“Broer.”

Vincent’s voice is soft. Patient. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t have the words for… this,” Theo says, gestures vaguely at his heart, like pained. “I don’t know where to look for them anymore.”

And his brother smiles like he knows all the answers. (Theo believes Vincent has all the answers.) “There is poetry everywhere, Theo," he says, sounding awfully like her, "Your eyes are focused on the wrong things.”

Like a flash of lightning, he hears it: in the lilt of her voice, the tinkle of laughter, her voice like thunderclouds rolling over a sunlit summer. The poem that found him, instead of the other way around.

You.

Theo immediately goes out to find fancy stationery he knows she likes and gets his best fountain pen and writes; the weight of honesty pins the words solidly onto the parchment. Theo had not known metaphor until that moment, had not understood what it meant when whatever a sun will always sing is you was written, until—

Until it was his heart that was chanting it.

And the day after, he delays the inevitable: seals the letter with glue, sticks a stamp on the upper right corner of the envelope. Theo slips it into the to-mail box without a word, and then exits the post office like he hasn’t left his heart there for sending.

[theohollis]

self para ✘ falling again

trigger warnings to be aware of before reading on: mentions of death, cancer/illness, anxiety, prostitution

the deferral form had been sitting open on theo’s laptop for days. he’d started filling it out on the off chance that he’d decide to stay in lake wisteria until the new year. he thought that a break from the city was what he needed -- time with his friends and family, miles and cj, was more important than fast-tracking his master’s degree. the form had once been a beacon of hope, in a way. but now, it felt like a confirmation of everything theo didn’t want to face.

after delilah and brandon broke the news to him and miles about their mother’s cancer, theo had fallen into a whirlwind, but memories of the few hours afterwards were blurry. he remembers rushing out of the room, out of the house to the front yard, where the tears had finally made their descent down his cheeks. 

why why why why why.

the next thing he knew he was in his car, driving, heading away from the town that held so much good, yet so many devastating memories for the young man. he was only twenty two and had already experienced so much loss and pain, been broken down by the world over and over again. and here he was, faced with the fact that he could possibly lose the woman who he called mom for the past fifteen years. he wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take before he was too broken beyond repair.

at some point, he pulled off to the side of the road ( most likely about ten miles outside of town ). his tears were blurring his vision, making it too difficult to see the road in front of him. balled fists pounded against the steering wheel and sobs racked theo’s shoulders for hours, it felt like. he was so sad, so frustrated, with everything the universe kept throwing at him. he had been so young when he lost his mother, at an age when the trauma of losing the only family you had ever known was internalized because even the child psychologists believed it hadn’t affected his young brain at the time. but the trauma came later. 

it came when he found himself crying over a pathetic family tree in the sixth grade, where all he could include was himself, sofia, miles, brandon, and delilah. he was encouraged to include the rest of the hollis family, but it didn’t feel right. they weren’t his family.

it came when theo watched ezra cope with the death of his own mother, realizing that there were so many stages of grief that he had never gone through himself. when he’d sneak into ezra’s room in the middle of the night just to hold him and tell him it was okay, he’d let his own grief-filled tears stain pillowcases -- not only for ezra’s mother, but for his own.

it came when he’d woken up next to a prominent editor with only blurry memories to piece together what had happened. the first thought that came to mind was his mother. what would she think of him, waking up next to someone who’d so clearly taken advantage of him and would continue to do so for years?

it came during his first therapy session in new york, when he was asked about his family health history -- unknown. he couldn’t tell his therapist whether or not his mother had battled depression or if his father was medicated for anxiety because he just didn’t know. he would never know the answer to those questions.

and it was coming now, the underlying trauma rooted in the premature death of his mother shaking him to his core as he tried to grapple with the fact that delilah had been diagnosed with breast cancer. it was almost two hours of an uninterrupted anxiety attack before theo was able to pull himself together and drive home.

unbeknownst to him at the time, he would spend the next few days hidden away in his room, unable to fully bring himself to the level of functioning that he’d managed to adhere to since coming back home. his phone would lay abandoned on his night stand, with the occasional buzz of the group chat. he’d respond every now and then, ensuring no one had any reason to worry -- even send out individual texts to cj and august, explaining away his absence in the past few days. emails about his potential book contract would pile up in his inbox, wondering where the first few poem drafts were and why he hadn’t submitted them by the deadline the day before. the pages full of potential poems he could send to his editor lay abandoned on his desk next to his laptop, where the deferral form glared at him in bright led light. calls from new york would go unanswered, voicemails filling his phone, each one angrier than the last, wondering why he wasn’t responding and threatening to pull the plug on his career that was so deeply rooted in circumstances theo could hardly think about.

in the first few days of his reclusiveness, delilah tried to talk to theo, about her diagnosis, about how it didn’t mean the worst for her, about the options she had to beat it. but theo would just lay in bed, his back to her, not responding. to acknowledge the fact that delilah was sick was to acknowledge that he could lose her. and he couldn’t lose another mom, the emotional toll would be too much.

every so often there would be a knock on theo’s door and he knew right away that it was miles. each knock would be followed up with a text from his brother, never anything that would be classified as substantial to anyone outside of the two boys, but it meant a lot to theo. it was his older brother letting him know that he was there for him, the simple texts and mugs of tea left outside his door. every time he was reminded of the fact that he wasn’t going through any of this alone, that his feelings probably weren’t unique to just him. delilah was miles’s mom too, even more so than she was theo’s. and if things were this bad for him, he could only imagine what miles was going through. it seemed like neither of them could escape the weight of the world around them, no matter how hard they tried to shove it off.

the fighting in the group chat had been the last straw for theo. he couldn’t bear to watch all of his friends, people he loved, constantly bicker all the time because of stupid shit when there were more important things going on. so he’d left the group chat, the one he created with the hopes of creating a feeling of nostalgia for his friends -- though it only seemed to bring negative feelings for everyone, including himself.

that night, theo sat down at his laptop and finished filling out the deferral form. with one click of the touch pad, the email was sent and he just had to wait for approval before he would text one of his friends in the city that he would need them to water his plants for a few more months.

on the line that asked for the reason for the deferral request, theo wrote simply: wanting to spend more time with the people he loved.

[maceopaisley]

BLACK HISTORY:

There was a special moment in the 90's when middle class black people started to become acknowledged as a thing.My mother wouldn't let me get a pair of Nike Cortez because she didn't want anyone to confuse me for a gang member. It was VERY important to my parents that I be as clear as possible about this position. I did not own a hooded sweatshirt until I was 22 years old and had purchased it myself. At the time I thought they were being over bearing, but 20 years later, it brings me to tears to see how right they were the whole time.

The most famous example of a black middle class family was the Cosby show which I didn't identify with at all but every body seemed to liken my two parent stable household to their archetype. But alas I am no Theo Huxtable.

At the same time A Different World was informing my whole world view. While everyone tried to make me Steve Urkel from Family Matters, I KNEW I was Dwayne Wade! In Living Color was by far THE FUNNIEST SHOW ON TV and everyone knows this.

I had the complete works of Langston Hughes in my living room and opened a new poem everyday. And Maya Angelou was still alive and Oprah was in her prime. These women reminded me of my mother and informed my perspective on beauty and what a grown woman was. Both of my grand mothers are classy regal dark skinned women who I have never actually seen in public looking less than PERFECT. I knew I had to keep lotion on my elbows around them. Like all the black women I knew, they held men accountable, it was no joke.

I had the BIGGEST crush on Lisa Turtle from Saved By the Bell and because RnB was also in its prime I had no shortage of dark skinned black women to pine over; Brandy, Monica, all of SWV, Chilli from TLC.

But I was also a nerdy weirdo, so I gravitated to W.E.B Dubois, and read everything Fredrick Douglas wrote probably before I graduated high school. To me, Malcom X wasn't even militant per say but an activist intellectual. My whole life I thought Martin Luther King Jr. was soft, until I started doing my own research.

The dudes I wanted to be were Usher, and Tevin Campbell. They were smooth as fuck and women loved them. I would have given a leg to be a member of Immature.I was always dancing in private. Always in private. I thought B2K was wack.

As I got older Mos Def was my Plato, Andre 3000 TAUGHT ME HOW TO DRESS. Kanye West was always overrated but he was from my team so I supported him until Lupe Fiasco came out and then he was my dude! Lupe perfectly rode the nerdy black dude line and made it seem cool via skateboarding. I was also a skateboarder, after having been a rollerblader, which was social suicide.

Kareem Campbell was the only big skateboarder at the time but Sal Masekala was THE voice of extreme sports so I always rocked with him. Meanwhile, I was still bumping KRS One, De La Soul, and James Brown because for me they were soundtracks to my life.

I was saddened to realize that jazz had become "smooth" and after viewing it as a life philosophy for many years, I abandoned it. My father and grandfather were stable male role models that I both feared and admired. This is what it was to be a man. Denzel just basically played my father in every role so he didn't stand out to me. (Not much has changed.)

If I had to narrow my identity down to characters you'd I'd say The Fresh Prince's Will Smith and Carlton Banks was where I landed smack dab in the middle. Being a hip hop head, kept me reading the dictionary to expand my vocabulary for lyrics. It's how I became a poet, and just now I am beginning to identify as a writer. I didn't get into Yin Yang Twins and Lil Jon because it was "mainstream" but I was infatuated with Cash Money and Lil Wayne was like a prophet in my early adulthood.

Cornel West would pop in and out of my intellectual periphery but I began to look more towards hip hop culture for guidance. I felt like black intellectualism had dried up and conscious rap had devolved into preachy bad music. I think many of us were cozy in the 2000's maybe that was the dark ages for black thought, or maybe I was just out of touch. I remember thinking about getting a grill, and a big ass watch, which I never did. But my kicks were fire because I would buy these limited Bapes and just blow my whole check on them to stay in the running for cool. Pharrell was a major influence and that was right about the time I started messing with my concept of who I was.

Wesley Snipes was married to a white woman in Waiting To Exhale and they made it seem like it was okay (even though she was dying). I realize now was a perspective altering moment. I caught wind of Barack Obama very early because he was on the periphery of my fathers social sphere. I recognized immediately that did not have slavery in his past, that his mother was white, that he was not BLACK THE WAY I WAS BLACK. I knew the class divide he represented and I have struggled with my feelings about that all my life.

I remember watching School Daze and wondering which side I would have been on. By that time the age old conflict between bougie and pro-black was popping up every where. And I have always known I am BOTH.

So I am putting sweaters around my neck one year and the next year I am throwing my fist up. I could never choose, and never felt I had to, even though my community always seems to decide for me. I noticed we opted in and out of hood culture as middle class blacks. Referencing where we came from but shaming people who didn't make it out at times. Playing deep hood music at house parties but turning it down when we drove through white neighborhoods.

I saw Ice cube begin to code switch and get more and more movies. Tyler Perry seemed to be unequivocably problematic in practice even though I though some of his plays were funny and accurate. I'm missing people, tons of men and women who obfuscate the perception of blackness held my mainstream America but sharpen it for me. Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice showed me that you can be a black person and a patriot, but not without great conflict of interest.

The black experience is so far and wide and complex that I can't summarize my historical perspective on it. I had the whole collection of Black History books they sent us one per month, and still had never heard of the women from Hidden Figures. We had a million books and chemistry sets, and all the musical instruments in the world in my home but I never once was gifted a new bike. The fact that I am creative isn't so much inherent as it was a construction of my parents. My brother is very different than me even though we grew up in similar social conditions. He reminds me that sociology is only have the story, we are our own people to become.

Today, I still struggle with the privilege I inherited and push against my tendencies to be elitist and judgmental. I recognize that I am invited into white spaces far more than many of my peers and that means I never enter them without trepidation. Award shows, academia, and dinner parties still feel foreign but I am speak the language fluently.

I was above freaking at parties and I never used the B word in my raps. I think Grace Jones single handedly shattered everything I knew about what was possible for black people to become. Thinking about Muhammed Ali for too long makes me cry. The love/hate relationship I have with America sometimes shows up in the mirror.

Wu-Tang forever. Happy Black History Month. #taoofmaceo