PSA:

Fathers, sons, flight—as far as fathers go, no one would rank Daedalus as World’s #1 Dad. Why didn’t he and his son Icarus make their famous flight at night? Moonlight won’t melt wax. But I think Daedalus knew exactly what he was doing. Had they flown by moonlight, we wouldn’t have learned of the consequences of ambition unmatched by ability. And Brueghel would not have painted the shepherds and farmers not seeing Icarus splash into the sea, and Auden would not have written “how everything turns away / quite leisurely from the disaster.”

The Harvest Moon rises tonight and “The Moon in Full” series continues at the Paris Review.

There are manmade joys beyond my comprehension, too. The horrors aren’t special.

Netflix: *doesn’t give I Am Not Okay With This a second season*

Me: I Am Not Okay With This.

From How to Be Perfect by Ron Padgett

“I have never been one of those people—I know you aren’t, either—who feels that the love one has for a child is somehow a superior love, one more meaningful, more significant, and grander than any other. I didn’t feel that before Jacob, and I didn’t feel that after. But it is a singular love, because it is a love whose foundation is not physical attraction, or pleasure, or intellect, but fear. You have never known fear until you have a child, and maybe that is what tricks us into thinking that it is more magnificent, because the fear itself is more magnificent. Every day, your first thought is not “I love him” but “How is he?”

-Hanya Yanagihara, “A Little Life”.

the pain is neverending...........but so is the swag 🫡

Sometimes those scenes would go on and on and on and you’d be like…are they going to call cut? Cause this is going on forever.

Artwork: Hu Jundi

* * * *

“I’ll try to sleep now. What’s sleep? What’s this magical death spread with the names of the vine? A body, lead heavy, is thrown into a cotton cloud by sleep. A body that soaks up sleep as an uncared-for plant absorbs the scent of dew.”

— Mahmoud Darwish, from Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 (tr. Ibrahim Muhawi)

[Belles-lettres]

no, mom, you don't need to worry about me getting distracted by a boyfriend, you've already fucked up my attachment style so much i can't bear the thought of someone loving me unconditionally without having a nervous breakdown...

there are whole worlds between 'friend' and 'lover' that we don't talk about, or even have names for... there are levels of love we need to stop ignoring