On Friendship.
Every time I wrote your name, I lied. Every time I wrote your name, it was the truth.
1.Clarice Lispector | 2.Nickie Zimov | 3.Warsan Shire | 4.Pablo Neruda | 5.Madeline Miller | 6.Nickie Zimov | 7.Madeline Miller | 8.Vincent van Gogh | 9.James Joyce | 10.Nick Lantz | 11.Ocean Vuong | 12.Nickie Zimov | 13.Richard Brautigan | 14.Keaton St. James
Hamda Al Fahim “Disco Daydreams” spring 2022 couture
have been fundamentally changed as a person (<- read a good book)
She’s a lot like you, Oda Iselin Sønderland
“and you were gazing at me, more than gazing — my gaze was dreaming you, and yours was dreaming me.”
— Pedro Salinas, from “Tell me”; To Live In Pronouns: Selected Love Poems (tr. by Edith Helman & Norma Farber)
David Hamilton - Nina Ricci “Farouche” Perfume Ad (Cosmopolitan 1976)
never let me go, anne magill
— a girl is a haunted house, tathève simonyan
[text ID: “I could’ve lived like this”, echoed in my head. / As I looked around, my eyes unthinkingly clung to places where I could’ve hidden my selves: the ones that didn’t come to being and the one that I was. In the cupboards of this kitchen I could’ve buried all the women I could’ve grown into. While doing so, I would’ve put on the apron of the one who inhabited the kitchen. The cups and the glasses would’ve made place for me. I could’ve easily found a home in between the kitchen table and refrigerator. As the fragrance of rosemary and thyme found their way to me, a picture found its way to the back of my eyes: a hushed scene, full of contentment, a shot of me standing in the center of this kitchen, feet thick brown trucks giving birth to dozens of snakelike radixes, covered in colorful moss, devoid of flowers but who needs flowers when all they do is wilt anyway? I would’ve thought so, had I been the me of that frame. / I could’ve been content here, not happy, but content. The cutlery and the plates would’ve made place for me. The dull roar of the washing machine would’ve hidden my cries, with the same diligence it sheltered my mother’s. The “what ifs” of this particular scenario smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. / I could’ve been content here. I thought as I placed the coffee cup on the countertop next to the gas stove: the surface always wet for it filled the space between the sink and the stove, in between water and fire. / I could’ve been content here. I repeated as I unscrewed the lid of the coffee jar and took out a spoonful of the umber powder. / While turning on the gas and putting the cezve on its designated place, I cursed the mind that yearned for more, yearned to be more than what it was supposed to be. I cursed the eyes that only saw what was not in front of them, hands that wished to touch what wasn’t theirs to touch and the tongue that longed to taste what wasn’t hers to taste. I cursed myself because I understood that I could’ve been content here, and as the umber froth fought its way to the surface, my tears caved in to the gravitational force.]
Amal El-Mohtar, from The Honey Month; “Day 27: Leatherwood Honey”
[Text ID; “I value you. I will love you hard and strong because I suffer in loving you, and will make you suffer with me.”]
[1] Summer clouds are racing across the sky on Monet's pond, [2] Current in a summer sky,(Monet's pond) | Reiji Hiramatsu