#mindy nettifee quote

[soracities]

Maybe no one ever told you, But the heart IS a metaphor. Yours is growing so strong You'll have your rhythm back any day now—

Mindy Nettifee, from “The First Time”

[asoftepiloguemylove]

"I couldn't touch you without ruining you,

so I didn't touch you at all."

Mindy Nettifee, All I Had To Say For Myself

[imaginemirage]

The truth is this: My love for you is the only empire I will ever build. When it falls, as all empires do, my career in empire building will be over.

Mindy Nettifee

[ciitedexcerpt]

I couldn't touch you without ruining you, so I didn't touch you at all.

[thecosmoswhispers]

I ruin everything I touch.

(Genesis 3:17 / Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov / n/a / n/a / Franz Kafka / n/a / Mindy Nettifee, All I Had To Say For Myself / Gillian Flynn, Dark Places (quote) / Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment / n/a)

( i sincerely hope this gives off the 'cursed' vibe the requester wanted, but if not, this will be edited or redone later on! )

[fractalkiss]

fic commentary/notes for the year you thought you were dying.

trying this thing where i do fic commentaries here instead of on dreamwidth since most of my recent dw posts will be private now.

influences:

there was this BL titled "my 40-year-old prostitute" in english or something like that that a mutual from twt recommended. look, it was good. im so fucking serious. the yaoi art was beautiful and sexy and it started out so well with compelling characters. but the translators ceased uploading translations by just chapter 2 in 2020 on [redacted] site. which effectively meant the premise never left me for months and i was so sad.

joke's on me tho all of this really became serious after i wrote tumblr ficlets of 1418 hooker au in response to some fun ask prompts in the summer, which are in my fic tag somewhere.

some quotes from more influences:

"It’s obvious that the range of people who sought out sex for money would change dramatically in a kinder, gentler world. [...] Sex work would also attract stone butches of all genders and sexual orientations—people who want to run the fuck but are not interested in experiencing their own sexual vulnerability and pleasure. Often these people are the most adept at manipulating other people’s experiences. They are more objective about their partners’ fantasies and do not become distracted by their own desires, since their needs to remain remote and in control are already being fulfilled. - pat califa, 1994, 2000

"You. What will you let yourself become for me?" - dorothy allison, her thighs, 1992.

the essay "her thighs" is about lesbian power play and so influential to me. i think dorothy allison is a very powerful writer and i love her poetry.

this is an allison excerpt from jane ward's the tragedy of heterosexuality:

i kept this in mind too while i was writing manuela's short backstory.

the process:

i wanted crazy thangs with the structure. i wanted most of the sexual intimacy to be revealed much later to the reader, after we go through mostly the companionship aspect of the service -- which i realise now is not crazy but a boring approach and would really change the story so i didnt do it.

sex pollen fic done this way is my fave tho. helenish wrote this sga fic called This Gun for Hire with sex amnesia in it where everyone is in denial in the aftermath about the kind of sex that was repeatedly happening. there are other fic examples (can't quite remember or have bookmarked) where the denial and delusion is so completely off the charts with a character in trying to get through the aftermath of the event without a freaky sex trope involved.

so i wondered if i could pull off that kind of blurriness and denial in the structure for a character who KNOWS what is happening but thinks they're still straight and will die straight lmao. but fernando in this story is just jaded, retiring and isn't cripplingly repressive.

the notes from my word tracker doc that i had to do to be able to write long fic. i laugh at this every time:

my projected word count for this was 20k, which was so off lmfao.

i put off getting them to have sexy fun in italy at one point because i didn't know yet what emotional point they needed to get to and what grounds they'd be on then. i wrote a bit of a very different scene to lead up to it, but then scrapped it. and then i wrote the auction night and the morning-after scene. tension and conflict (without having to use miscommunication as the necessary crutch) is always one of my most favorite things to write about so i was so glad i got to this point LOL. the payoff of reaching a compromise and then an emotional release later is so rewarding to me! i love that shit

emotionally i just knew i needed it to be like the mindy nettifee poem i grabbed the fic title from.

figuring out how to write lance in this fic was really hard ngl since i went into the story almost blind. cofi made me realise this blind spot when i showed her an early wip and i was like hold awn.... if i wasn't sending @strulovic broken drafts and doing lanceology consultations with her, i wouldn't have gotten anywhere in the story.

alonso being a divorcee irl is so important to each and every one of my agendas thank god for the gay uncle. i did a lot of google searching to be able to write fernando's approach to sex and relationships outside of the job. i knew what i wanted to take away, like the difficulties with intimacy that former workers have had, and still have after the industry sometimes. fernando scrubbing his hands clean at lance's place after the auction despite not having sex with the auction client, his views on wanting the sex with his ex-wife and other exes to be "acceptable and proper" in contrast to whatever he's done for work, and how the internalised homophobia warps this for him while he tries to play the gentleman with lance in italy (and lance being able to read through him and understand that fernando DOES want to fuck him nasty ‼️ though lance doesn't understand the extent of fernando's issue with it). there are also accounts where sex work gave a worker the experience, space and autonomy they needed to slowly heal from prior traumatic and/or abusive experiences. the research was very interesting.

relied on music A LOT. an honorary ldr song [hears collective groaning] that didn't get included in the fic playlist was Love song. lance was in that passenger seat beside fernando in their sleek '67 restored fiat on the way to umbria wishing and wishing to get railed.

ALMOST FORGOT TO INCLUDE: ferrari to mclaren 2.0 fernando was the print here. he keeps the ferrari depression beard ofc.

truly not an overstatement, i think this fic was what made writing smth as long as this quite enjoyable and bearable for me. dare i say fun! haha

[sweatermuppet]

what did you mean by poetry notes? im learning more abt poetry and would love tips on what to research

poetry notes are quotes ive copied into a notebook from books on writing poetry (ordinary genius by kim addonizio, & currently glitter in the blood by mindy nettifee). pen down tips, prompts, anything that seems useful. i did recently reblog an ask on how i annotate books of poetry—if it's too far back to find, ill reblog it again by request <3

[belladonna-wright]

ampio orizzonte by ettore tito / the day before you came by abba / portrait d'une jeune fille en feu (2019) dir. celia schimmia / a finger, two dots, then me by derrick brown / summerland (2020) dir. jessica swale / the nonsense of love by mindy nettifee / agatha christie's miss marple: a murder is announced (2005) / pirouette by audre lorde / the wild good; lesbian photographs and writings on love edited by beatrix gates / fragment 147 by sappho / summerland (2020) dir. jessica swale / queers by gareth maclean / call the midwife, 5x07 /

This is an aesthetic that deals with something that I think is an important part of Jessie's life; her sexuality. I know that it's happened 'off camera' in terms of story-telling, but I think it's incredibly important to understanding her as a person and the experiences of generations of LGBTQ+ people to do some justice to her story.

So this is about the joy of discovering a side to your sexuality and yourself you had never known before, and the difficulty of those experiences in a time when it was outright illegal to act on those feelings.

But I think the last quote says it best.

[tokyocyborg]

in a pretentious mood tonight and i like using my blog as my brain personified so here are some of my favourite quotes/poems

"I don't want to be the one who mourns everything when everyone else has clearly forgotten. It's mortifying. It's mortifying to be the one who remembers."

Ryan O'Connell

"I am tired of myself tonight. I should like to be somebody else."

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

"I was hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it, to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once."

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

"While you wash your body you realize it is not your body. And at the same time, it is the only body you have."

Warsan Shire, Hooyo Isn't Home

"I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out."

Natalie Díaz, American Arithmetic

"I want to be myself again. I want to be six. I want to stop knowing everything I know."

Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless

"You are embarrassed about your blood, it's redness, the way it is just coming out of you with no concern for anyone's feelings. You are [...] embarrassed to be alive."

Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

"Sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you've been ruined."

Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

"'How do you get so empty?' he wondered. 'Who takes it out of you?'"

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

"In a sense, I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself."

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

"Nothing has changed. I was the stupid one again. I was the girl who never understood who she was to people."

Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I'm Home

"'I am destroying myself so other people can't,' she said. 'And it's the worst kind of control but it's the only form I know.'"

Sue Zhao

"Mother / Eat me and give birth to me again / This time around I'll make you proud."

Maia Baia, Mother

"Who attached these heavy wings on my shoulders?"

Marina Tsvetaeva, On a Red Horse

"I search for you in my dreams."

Li Qingzhao, Tune: The Partridge Sky

"Sometimes I think if nobody spoke to me, I'd never speak again."

Alice Oseman, Radio Silence

"I want to / sin / every time / I am with / him."

Ming D. Liu, He wants to corrupt me. And I let him.

"I couldn't touch you without ruining you, / so I didn't touch you at all."

Mindy Nettifee, All I Had To Say For Myself

"If there is a God then I am going to make him cry."

S. Osborn, Blasphemies at the 5th Street Station

"I am here, alone, at the end of the world. I reach out and touch nothing."

Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (tr. Alfred Brinbaum)

"I considered suicide, but I felt a strange fondness for my body, my life. Scarred as they were, they were mine."

Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

"Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

"This is what our dying looks like. You believe in the sun. I believe I can't love you."

Jericho Brown, Another Elegy (This is what our dying looks like)

"I am in the mood / to be forgotten."

Hanif Abdurraqib, FOR THE DOGS WHO BARKED AT ME ON THE SIDEWALKS IN CONNECTICUT

"It is awful to want to go away and want to go nowhere."

Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

"I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinic that even though their program told me I could not live as a Gay man, it looks like I'm going to die as one."

Louis Sullivan

"Lie to yourself about this and you will forever lie about everything."

Frank Bidart, Queer

"I am quiet, I bury no one, blood is drying beneath my nails. I do not know which me it belongs to."

Julian Randall, On the Night I Consider Coming Out to My Parents

"I have stopped bringing flowers to the grave of the teenager I used to be."

Blythe Barid, If My Body Could Speak

"My longing for the past is deeper than words."

Tao Yuan-ming, Matching a Poem by Secretary Kuo (tr. Burton Watson)

"The day I died / I didn't tell / my body."

Jasmine Mans, Black Girl, Call Home

"(does not dream; is only dreamed of)"

Franny Choi, Soft Science

"Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either."

Nicola Yoon, The Sun is Also a Star

"Sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine."

Richard Siken, Crush

"I needed to be somewhere different. Maybe I needed to be someone different, too."

Heather Davis

"I wanted to be where nobody I knew could ever come."

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"To be made of flesh was humiliation."

Alice Munro, Lives of Girls and Women

"Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be devoured?"

Friedrich Nietzsche, Good and Evil

"I am tired. / These people make me feel like I have a hole in the middle of me."

D. H. Lawrence, The Complete Works; The Plumbed Serpent

"I've polished this anger and now it's a knife."

Cathy Linh Che, Go Forget Your Father

"Home is the first grave."

Fatimah Asghar, How'd Your Parents Die Again?

"Who hasn't ever wondered: am I a monster or it this what it means to be a person?"

Clarice Lispector, The Hour of the Star

"That's how hearts get broken, you know. When you believe in promises."

Kathleen Glasgow, Girl in Pieces

"So much to do today: / kill memory, kill pain, / turn heart into a stone, / and yet prepare to live again."

Anna Akhmatova, The Sentence

"My body is burning with the shame of not belonging."

Warsan Shire

"I want things to hurt- / cigarette smoke to burn my lungs, / glass shards to cut my skin / pavement to rasp against my knees. / I do not want beautiful; / I want a goddam tragedy."

Meggie C. Royer, Tragedies

[theworldismadeofwords]

I want to throw a party for the heartbreak that turned you into a poet

Mindy Nettifee

[ribombeee]

litany in which certain things are crossed out by richard siken

the raven boys by maggie stiefvater

this is the nonsense of love by mindy nettifee

[soracities]

I couldn’t touch you without ruining you, so I didn’t touch you at all.

Mindy Nettifee, from “All I Had to Say For Myself”

[davidlavieri]

There is no clean way to enter the heavy machinery of the heart.

Just jagged cutthroat questions. Just the glitter and blood production.

Mindy Nettifee, “This is the Nonsense of Love”

[pepprs]

the WAY i keep ruining my own life moodboard 😍

[the-death-of-inspiration]

The First Time by Mindy Nettifee

I.

The first time your heart was torn from your chest, You thought you were dying. You knew you could not live with the empty space. So you replaced your heart with metaphors And set out to create a world where the metaphor was unbreakable.

Now look what you’ve done— You can’t breathe so you write. You can’t hurt so you drink rum and pour our pirate chanties. You can’t want revenge so you leave.

II.

When I see you I have two thoughts: You are the reason The Smith’s wrote songs, And my god, you are beautiful.

You are so beautiful Blinking stars go blind.

But I can see this is going to get ugly. The metaphors don’t make you feel whole anymore. You sell out your deepest insecurities for a handful of laughs. This life has you wound so tight you make grandfather clocks look relaxed. You hold your body like banks hold money—all locked up. Your shoulders are glass rocks waiting for the next attack.

But you’ve got it all wrong.

You don’t survive history. History survives you.

There is no breakthrough without breakdown.

III.

If you’re going to break, shatter. No explanations. No limp-legged dog excuses. No messing with this bullet proof vest fury So popular with the cops and the presidents.

You’ve got to break like Texas. You’ve got to take the pain from the safety valve of your heart And return it to your fists. Fight your better judgment ‘till you’re sinister again, ‘till your body remembers what it already knows how to do— bend back and manifest grief. Scream torches ‘till you embarrass the enlightened.

Please. No more polite conversations with your death wish. Give it something useful to do. Change your life.

Cause I can’t stand to see you like this. So blue, my eyes turn green in your presence. Listen—you are so beautiful, Grass pushes through sidewalk cracks just to kiss your feet.

IV.

Maybe no one ever told you, But the heart IS a metaphor. Yours is growing so strong You’ll have your rhythm back any day now—

Loving like rumours spread. Dreaming like lunatic spacemen jump from their suits. Living like you never forgot how.

[liquidlightandrunningtrees]

I want to throw a party for the heartbreak that turned you into a poet.

Mindy Nettifee