Small Swims ^_^

a dialogue between the unloved and the loving

neil hilborn // miranda july // @orpheuslament // aaron o’hanlon // georges bataille // georges bataille “my mother/madame edwarda/the dead man” // @khariyaha // natalie wee “least of all” // @fridayiminlovemp3 // maria petrovykh “love me. i am pitch black” // “the seven husbands of evelyn hugo” // sylvia plath “johnny panic & the bible of dreams” // mary oliver “wild geese” // sue zhao // virginia woolf from a letter to katherine mansfield // trista mateer

[ID: a collection of excerpts of text.

..saying goodbye. yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are.”

“finally, in a low whisper, he said, “i think i might be a terrible person.” for a split second i believed him - i thought he was about to confess a crime, maybe a murder. then i realized that we all think we might be terrible people. but we only reveal this before asking someone to love us. It is a kind of undressing.”

screaming take me as I am or kill me / screaming peel my skin off like a blindfold / screaming love me despite the horror / screaming please, God, love me because of it.

“show me your thorns and i’ll show you hands ready to bleed.”

“i don’t want your love unless you know i’m repulsive and love me as you know it”

People always think we look for love at our lowest to distract us. I am convinced we do it because we want someone to look us in the eye, to look our ugly in the eye and still choose us. I didn’t want a distraction, (highlighted) I wanted you to see a mess and still find me worthy of love, to tell me that you could still love me anyway. (end highlight)

“i kneel into a dream where i / am good & loved. i am good. / i am loved. my hands have made / some good mistakes. they can always / make better ones.

 capitalized letters that look like they’ve been cut and pasted on top of overhead pictures of fields. it reads: “tell me every terrible thing you ever did / and let me love you anyway.”

love me. i am pitch black, / sinful, blind, confused. / but if not you, then who else / is going to love me?

“if you are intolerable, let me be the one to tolerate you,” i said, and then i kissed her and tasted the lemon juice on her lips.

“you have seen the rotten streak in me and you have come back, no matter how bad it was. you have always come back. can’t you see? you have taken me always as I am, no matter what.”

“i wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.” “like what?” “i don’t know,” she hesitated. “like you could love me.”

“i love you, and i am conscious of you all the time.”

in this space right here that we have made for each other, you can say anything and i will not abandon you. unwrap the worst things you have done. watch me hold them up to the light and not even flinch. 

 end of ID]

all time ever does is pass and all i ever do is remember.

sue zhao / sexual devotion, nickie zimov / @ seashellronan / nomad, clairo / annihilation, jeff vandermeer / edward scissorhands (1990) / sky vance / dictionary of obscure sorrows / jonny, faye webster / the madman, kahlil gibran / may (2002) / the lonely city, olivia laing / punch and judy, elliott smith

In queer theory, the term queer is used to describe ruptures in commonly held assumptions about sexuality, gender, etc.

The sheer existence of asexuality shatters one of the oldest held beliefs about humanity which is that sexual attraction is a necessary and inevitable force that drives all people

Ace ppl turn this on its head. Our presence challenges the core of what it means to relate to others, to be happy, to find fulfillment —

To be human.

We are, if we choose to claim it, queer.

Maria Del Carmen Calvo - Floating lily pads

Jane O. Wayne // Kate Jacobs

Sarah Kay, No Matter the Wreckage; “Postcards”

i had to cut a knot out of my cat’s fur. for the first time in his life, in the ten years i have known him, he put his teeth on my hand, gently, a warning, telling me i was hurting him but unwilling to let that message sink in. 

i wonder how many people i have hurt worse than my cat hurt me. how many hands were trying to help me that i turned and devoured. i was so angry, so often, bristling with so many tangles that no knife could slit open. people who loved me tried everything and i snarled at them. how hurt i was when they were angry i was acting out of order. i would find out later their anger at my behavior was just because they were scared to death i was going to explode and they’d lose me and it came out looking angry.

i wish i could be like my cat. to warn that i was in pain, gently. to only lash out with the littlest of teeth. to know that sometimes what looks like an attack is actually a sign of love. but i only know claws, and using the fullest force of my venom to hurt others when they never meant to hurt me. i know logically sometimes there’s pain to pull the glass out. but i can’t stop myself from reacting.

Me shortly,

i spend my days waiting. waiting for the water to boil and my tea to be ready. for spring to come back. for more daylight. the oil in the pan to heat up. a “hey i miss you” or “can you help me out for a second?” or “you want to hang out?” text. for my phone to finish charging. for good news. flowers on the table. the next hug. “hey, you got the job!”. waiting for the sun. to set. to rise. to see both. for summer to be around the corner. a good song. a falling star. a text back. i spend my time waiting to be remembered. i spend my time repeating that tomorrow will be better. tomorrow will be better. i spend my days waiting and waiting and waiting. i spend my days waiting unbearably.

quotes that help me survive:

“You are not lost. You are here. Stop abandoning yourself. Stop repeating this myth about love and success that will land in your lap or evade you forever. Build a humble, flawed life from the rubble, and cherish that. There is nothing more glorious on the face of the earth than someone who refuses to give up, who refuses to give in to their most self-hating, discouraged, disillusioned self, and instead learns, slowly and painfully, how to relish the feeling of building a hut in middle of the suffocating dust.” — Heather Havrilesky, Ask Polly

this tumblr text post:

“To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” — Mary Oliver

From an interview with Kazu Makino:

Instructions On Not Giving Up, Ada Limon:

And this poster by Yumi Sakugawa

“You have to believe, in your heart, that even if you don’t work hard and exercise and think positive thoughts and make new friends and march triumphantly into the future, you are still enough. You will always have bad days. Being broken doesn’t make you a loser. You can crumble, and you will still be enough. Make that your religion moving forward. You are here to feel this moment. You are not here to become someone better. You are not here to impress or compete. You are not here to prove yourself. You are here to savor this life. Let down your guard. You are already enough. Believe it.” — Heather Havrilesky

“The first feminist gesture is to say: “Ok. They’re looking at me. But I’m looking at them.” The act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by how people see me, but by how I see them.” -Agnès Varda

lyrics from the song Grow by The Oh Hellos:

“The world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness—the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books—can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.” — Mary Oliver

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you,and that you will work with these stories from your life--not someone else's life--water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom. That is the work. The only work.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes