Aesthetic: Sudden Collapse

“I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist.”

— Andrea Gibson, Birthday

Can’t believe Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 2000s

And in 2015 Emily Brontë released literary clsssic Wuthering Heights

Thank God someone paved the way for them…

to finding;

hands reaching out towards each other in the depths of the sea, a lone lighthose standing in the midst of the ocean, waves that roar and grow only taller, the sea spray and the salty breeze kissing your face, odd things washing up onto shore, letters written in cursive, effortless script, beholding the words of a lover.

Doesn't a word look weird when we stare at it long enough? Doesn't the alphabet look slightly meaningless when we write it over and over again? Here's one: CLING C-LING, C-L-ING, C-L-I-NG, C-L-I-N-G. Does this make sense? It doesn't sound like a word the more you say it. It doesn't look like a word the more you write it. The curves and strokes, dots and dash!

Isn't it how the name of the people you love changes? At some point, it stops being a name, a word that belongs to them. It becomes a feeling that belongs to you. It stops sounding like a word or a random string of letters. It becomes a string of feelings you cling to when life falls apart. Their name on your phone screen stops looking like a word. Every notification and phone call conjures an image of them looking at you and smiling before you can even look at it twice. That particular string of curves and strokes, dots and dash Once belonged to them and is now beloved by you Which you randomly write in the air because it gives you comfort.

Sometimes we take names for granted without realizing the power it holds. When all it takes is that one word to appear on your screen to get you through another tiring day.

one time in high school my french teacher told the class that his grandmother died and a kid in the class said “je regrette :(“ and the french teacher burst out laughing and was like “you’re gonna wanna say desolé in this context because je regrette means like…. my bad”

t h o u g h t s

It's been a few minutes,

My head on your shoulder, your arm around me

Neither of us utters a word.

What are you thinking?

You ask, breaking the silence.

I'm thinking,

About the day we finally accepted how we felt,

And then the world tilted, the hourglass turned,

How every day we're slipping away, gradually

One sand grain at a time.

I'm thinking,

How unfortunate it is that our fate's already written

That we were to be like parallel lines

Destined to be together

But not with each other.

I'm thinking,

How long are we going to take it, one day at a time?

One call, one heart emoji, one I miss you at a time.

Like a recovering addict,

Each day takes us twelve steps away from each other.

I'm thinking,

How the time we are together is snowglobe moments.

How we are confined to only a moment in time.

While the world around us moves on and on.

And we relive one perfect yet fragile moment.

I'm thinking,

How we belong to each other today,

For now.

How wonderful it'll be if the world ends today.

While you are mine and I'm yours.

So I don't have to see tomorrow.

When the hourglass is finally empty

When either of the parallel lines ends.

When we are so apart that we stand out of sight

When the snow globe falls to the floor, waking us up.

Instead,

I try to come back to that second,

To your voice, eyes, and presence,

Instead, I say,

I'm thinking about getting ice cream.

Who is the real subject of most love poems? Not the beloved. It is the hole. When I desire you, a part of me is gone: my want of you partakes of me. So reasons the lover at the edge of eros. The presence of want awakens in him nostalgia for wholeness. His thoughts turn toward questions of personal identity: he must recover and reincorporate what is gone if he is to be a complete person. […] Most people find something disturbingly lucid and true in Aristophanes’ image of lovers as people cut in half. All desire is for a part of oneself gone missing, or so it feels to the person in love.

Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay.

CROWDED TRAIN RIDES

We save the most intense conversations

For the crowded train rides back home.

Not the same home. Not now. Not ever.

We stand in between the bustling crowd,

Look out the window and avoid each other's eyes

You hum under your breath, and I pretend I didn't hear it

We talk about the day in moments.

Ones that made us laugh, ones that felt grateful,

And then about the ones we didn't think the other would notice.

That brings a smile to your face,

So I crack open my otherwise dark heart just a little.

To let that light inside. You smile again, and I break again.

I tell you things I wouldn't tell you when we're alone

In the silence of an empty road where you can hear my voice break

So I find comfort in the crowd muffling out my pain.

The train stops, and you forget it's time.

It's time for you to get down, that it's time for us to reset.

We hug, you get down, and I watch you walk away.

One of these days will be our final train ride like this

Where we talk about us.

And we'll get down, go home. Not the same. Not ever.

But maybe one that's just as loved.

Harry: are you taken?

Draco: Yeah, for granted

Hufflepuff: alright we need a plan. Does anyone have any ideas?

Slytherin: *raises hand*

Hufflepuff: that DOESN’T involve murder

Slytherin: *slowly lowers hand*