Musings On Selfhood

Mahmoud Darwish, “Viewpoint,” trans. Fady Joudah, in The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, edited by Ilya Kaminsky [ID in alt text]

“Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs, oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.”

— Pablo Neruda, from “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair” published c. 1924

a prayer

Les Félins (René Clément), Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar Wai), Malcolm T. Liepke, Gustav Vigeland (Eros and Psyche), Stephan Sinding (Adoration), Soul Eom (kiss, hug and die)

musings on kisses

― Simone de Beauvoir (Letters to Sartre), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [Le Lit (The Bed), Au lit: le baiser (In Bed: The Kiss)], Indran Amirthanayagam (Kiss), Auguste Rodin, Gustav Klimt (The Kiss), Sara Teasdale (The Kiss)

˗ˏˋ☕ˎˊ˗      

I thought I had been surviving, and yet, what I was really doing was hanging by a string, loosely holding myself from collapsing. I was always on the verge, and I could feel that friction in my soul.

Fariha Róisín, from Who Is Wellness For?: An Examination of Wellness Culture and Who It Leaves Behind

there is this horror at being left behind

starting line, luke hemmings / fleabag (2016-2019); s1e6 "episode #1.6" / working for the knife, mitski / x / it chooses you, miranda july / ryan o'connell / x / via flickr / aristos the musical / x / the hours, michael cunningham

image descriptions below the cut

1. Black text highlighted in grey on a white background reads, "I wake up every morning with the years ticking by / I'm missing all these memories, maybe they were never mine / I feel the walls are closing / I'm running out of time / I think I missed the gun at the starting line".

2. Frame from the TV series "Fleabag." A woman with short, brown hair is sitting at a restaurant table in front of a window. She has tears in her eyes. Text at the bottom of the frame reads, "Either everyone feels like this a little bit and they’re just not talking about it or I am completely alone. Which isn’t fucking funny."

3. Black text on a white background reads, "I always knew the world moves on / I just didn't know it would go without me".

4. An empty playground structure illuminated at night, in front of an open field and the starry night sky.

5. Text on a grey background reads, in all caps, "all I ever really want to know is / [white text on a blue background] how other people are making it through life. / where do they put their body, hour by hour, / and how do they cope inside of it".

6. Black text on a white paper background reads, "about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you're not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are."

7. Blurry and grainy greyscale image of silhouetted people walking.

8. Worm's-eye view image of two silhouetted people holding hands while scuba diving. Black text on a white background in the top left and bottom right corners of the image reads, "I often wonder if life is easier for other people or they're just better at faking it".

9. Black text on a white background reads, "[Patroclus]: Remember what you once said about growing up? How it's like running after someone, but always falling behind?"

10. Text on a white background. Black text reads, "he was more lonely than the rest of his friends, he thought." Blue text reads, "but that's just not something that you talk about."

Evelyn Waugh, from Brideshead Revisited (1945)

Anne Carson, Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

food as a love language

Continua a leggere

“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (via noorshirazie)