Related Recs

🪢

Staying the course

One of my most adored writers, Ingeborg Bachmann (Austrian, Cancerian with strong Capricorn placements, total fucking genius) begins an untitled poem with these lines — translated by Peter Filkins — “don’t you see, my friends, don’t you see! / I have not survived it, nor gotten over it [...]” Simply put and very true — alas, for me, all too true; I think about these words almost daily: for me-myself, who has not so much survived the wounds inflicted by the cruelties of life as much as persisted through them, clinging to my continuance through sheer willpower, it could be almost a personal mantra or verbal leitmotif. Ah, but here-within lies the answer to the question: how does one such as I persist? Well, my friends, through not getting over things, all things, anything, be it good or bad, resolution or injustice. It’s that simple, my friends. If I am wronged, well, then let me steep long in the waters of resentment, biding time until retribution presents itself, no matter how, no matter when. And if I desire, let me desire until that desire is met, by hook or by crook, as they say — or until eternity. These dreams, you see, are what have kept my heart beating all this while … I swear, should ever my course waver, may the Devil strike me down that very instant!

@saoirse-bertram

May 10, 2023

📜

Someday i’ll love ocean Vuong

Ocean, don’t be afraid.  The end of the road is so far ahead  it is already behind us.  Don’t worry. Your father is only your father  until one of you forgets. Like how the spine  won’t remember its wings  no matter how many times our knees  kiss the pavement. Ocean,  are you listening? The most beautiful part  of your body is wherever  your mother’s shadow falls.  Here’s the house with childhood  whittled down to a single red tripwire.  Don’t worry. Just call it horizon & you’ll never reach it.  Here’s today. Jump. I promise it’s not  a lifeboat. Here’s the man  whose arms are wide enough to gather  your leaving. & here the moment,  just after the lights go out, when you can still see  the faint torch between his legs.  How you use it again & again  to find your own hands.  You asked for a second chance  & are given a mouth to empty into.  Don’t be afraid, the gunfire  is only the sound of people  trying to live a little longer. Ocean. Ocean,  get up. The most beautiful part of your body  is where it’s headed. & remember,  loneliness is still time spent  with the world. Here’s  the room with everyone in it.  Your dead friends passing  through you like wind  through a wind chime. Here’s a desk  with the gimp leg & a brick  to make it last. Yes, here’s a room  so warm & blood-close,  I swear, you will wake—  & mistake these walls  for skin.

@mouse

Jul 1, 2024

🤍

Clam, Mary Oliver

Each one is a small life, but sometimes long, if its place in the universe is not found out. Like us, they have a heart and a stomach; they know hunger, and probably a little satisfaction too. Do not mock them for their gentleness, they have a muscle that loves being alive. They pull away from the light. They pull down. They hold themselves together. They refuse to open. But sometimes they lose their place and are tumbled shoreward in a storm. Then they pant, they fill with sand, they have no choice but must open the smallest crack. Then the fire of the world touches them. Perhaps, on such days, they too begin the terrible effort of thinking, of wondering who, and what, and why. If they can bury themselves again in the sand they will. If not, they are sure to perish, though not quickly. They also have resources beyond the flesh; they also try very hard not to die.

@nadiyaelyse

Aug 17, 2024

Top Recs from @catieisonline

😃

Sidekicks karaoke

The walls are carpeted, there is cheesy onion bread and pizza you can buy, they sell shooters, and frequently the KJ falls asleep in the booth

@catieisonline

Jul 2, 2024