A Shade Of Green, The Colour Of A Mid-July Swimming Pool By The Sea At Sunset, The Colour Of Lush Forests,

“Dreams of a furnace, the warmth of the ember flickering upon the brick wall covered in the scrawls of innocent childhood, heavy clouds spread over the evening fading away into twilight, the eternal impermanence of the gently touching darkness and light surrounded the townhouse, awaiting the shrill shattering of the heart - held together and wrenched apart - by the forsaken ties of lost loves. will not a shard of glass pierce the trembling heart and end its agony, once and for all? And in the indifference of the glowering sky laid the ruin of kingdoms gone and kingdoms to come. The nymphs of wind care not about your sorrow, the angel of death and the moon kissed and parted last before the beginning of eternity. Run vainly to language and lay your wasted hands and tear stained face upon her breast, and spare nature her indifference.”

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”

— ERIN BOW

The feeling of regained humanity pervades the maple grove,

As branches rustle in the evening light - glinting golden,

their music pleasing dissonance, a swift breeze blows

over the horizon, blotting out lurking shadows.

Knives of love cut wounds that bleed ambrosia,

for what is the taste of ambrosia but the derisive emptiness

of a secret forgotten?

Faded flowers lay waste, that once were wreaths of worship

on altars sacred. At sea one instant, fragmented and lost,

on an isle the waves break unforgiving, and by the shore,

Robed in the receding Mist of dawn, towering and dense stood

The Maple grove, an unremembered grave of forgotten secrets.

Me: wants to start a conversation with someone

Me: thinks about all the potential things that could go wrong and have gone wrong in the past

Me: keeps thinking about this for twenty days

Me: gathers enough courage to open the chat

Me: sees the last text message

Me: becomes extremely paranoid and reads hostility into the ‘ok’ that was received

Me: just fucking gives up trying to make friends

choral music is so beautiful

For those of you who asked, here’s a list of some of my favourite poems:

Soleil et Chair (Sun and Flesh), Arthur Rimbaud Litany, Rebecca Linderberg A Myth of Devotion, Louise Glück L’Après-Midi d’un Faune (The Afternoon of The Faun), Stéphane Mallarmé Fever 103°, Sylvia Plath It’s No Use, Sappho (tr. Barnard) Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes, Rainer Maria Rilke The Glass Essay, Anne Carson Alchimie du Verbe (Alchemy of the Word), Arthur Rimbaud I Will Wade Out, E. E. Cummings Mrs. Beast, Carol Ann Duffy Elsa au Miroir (Elsa at The Mirror), Louis Aragon To Fanny, John Keats The First Elegy, Rainer Maria Rilke Persephone The Wanderer (I), Louise Glück Mad Girl Love Song, Sylvia Plath He Seems to Me, Sappho (tr. Carson) F. de Samara to A. G. A., Emily Brontë Pietà, Rainer Maria Rilke (and its many translations) To Proserpine (Orphic Hymn), Anonymous The Unicorn, Angela Carter Saying Your Names, Richard Siken Apparition, Stéphane Mallarmé The Tiger, Pablo Neruda Lady Lazarus, Sylvia Plath Clair de Lune, Roland Leighton I Like My Body When, E. E. Cummings When We With Sappho, Kenneth Rexroth Look On This Picture and On This, Christina Rossetti Nacciyar Tirumoli, Andal (tr. Sarukkai Chabria) Zuleikha, Rumi Marathon, Louise Glück The Red Poppy, Louise Glück The Concert of Hyacinths, Odysseus Elytis (tr. by Kimon Friar) Song for an Ancient City, Amal El-Mohtar Prayers in a Temple, Yusuf al-Khal (tr. by Abdullah al-Udhari) The Convent Threshold, Christina Rossetti Letter to Husband, Emily Berry my love, E. E. Cummings Glanmore Sonnet X, Seamus Heaney Plead for Me, Emily Brontë

what is your favourite fairy tale or myth ?

I've mostly read the short stories of the Grimm Brothers when it comes to fairy tales, so there are too many to choose or differentiate from I think. But for mythology, I really love the story of the bones stolen by Quetzalcoatl, of which here is a short excerpt:

Quetzalcoatl was instrumental in creating people to populate the fifth age. In order to do this, Quetzalcoatl had to sneak into the underworld of Mictlan and trick Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, the Lord and Lady of Death, into giving him the bones they guarded. Mictlantecuhtli would only give the bones to Quetzalcoatl if he could create a sound by blowing into a conch shell with no holes in it. Quetzalcoatl managed to complete this challenge through clever trickery. He had worms drill a hole in the conch, then filled the shell with bees. Quetzalcoatl’s actions successfully tricked Mictlantecuhtli into giving him the bones. But this was not enough for Quetzalcoatl. In an effort to further trick Mictlantecuhtli, Quetzalcoatl told him that he would leave Mictlan without the bones.

Before Quetzalcoatl could escape from Mictlan, however, his deception was discovered by Mictlanecuhtli. A deep pit appeared before Quetzalcoatl, preventing his escape. As he fell into the the pit, Quetzalcoatl was knocked unconscious and mixed up the bones he was carrying. After his eventual escape, Quetzalcoatl combined the now slightly shuffled bones with his blood and corn to create the first humans of the fifth age. The Aztecs used this allegory to explain why people came in all different heights.

(It's interesting how there are parallels in almost every mythology, for example in the Greek myth, Daedalus was lured by a similar puzzle set by King Minos where the contenders would have to thread a delicate conch shell by not doing any damage to it. Daedalus made a small hole at one end and smeared honey over it as well. Then he threaded a string to an ant and pushed it into the shell, and so it clawed through a neat hole without damaging the shell at all) (and also, Prometheus was somewhat of a Quetzalcoatl figure in most myths, aiding humanity with fire as Quetzalcoatl did with life and knowledge)

the soft courage and freedom that darkness brings

when you get this, please respond with five things that make you happy! then, send to your last ten people in your notifs (anonymously). you never know who might benefit from spreading positivity♡

Thank you for the ask!

1. Walks alone with no destination where I can gather lots and lots of weeds and ferns and just wander as I please.

2. Keeping all the doors and windows open during rain.

3. Some odd songs that are just so dear and impossibly sweet that you want to throw your arms around them.

4. Old chocolate wrappers.

5. Finding silly notes written in book margins long ago.