May 2012
1 post
April 2012
3 posts
“I have had—to be frank—a bad and worried and depressed and inconvenient winter…”
– Henry James, from a letter to Edith Wharton, 19 April 1909 (via proustitute)
“1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to...”
– After David Ogilvy’s now-infamous 10 tips on writing and Henry Miller’s 11 commandments of writing, here comes a list of rules for writers from George Orwell circa 1946. (via explore-blog)
4 tags
“Think for a minute darling: in fairy tales it’s always the children who...”
– From The Time Traveler’s Wife
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a...”
– Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride (via monkeyknifefight)
Those last two lines
(via nogreatillusion)
March 2012
3 posts
“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will...”
– Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)
February 2012
2 posts
2 tags
what ifs
When I am a different person, will you still love me?
2 tags
hello
she’s in her own little world of daydreams and reveries, floating on chiffon, yellow and pink.
no, she can’t talk right now, and her answering machine is full. please try again later.
January 2012
2 posts
1 tag
“Books are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music....”
– Margaret Atwood (via bookmania)
1 tag
in a slump
it’s a bad way to start off the year.
December 2011
3 posts
2 tags
going blind by rainer maria wilke
She followed slowly, taking a long time, as though there were some obstacle in the way; and yet: as though, once it was overcome, she would be beyond all walking and would fly.
2 tags
reconciliation
Her hands are sweaty.
This is just one of the many things she wishes she could change about herself. The thought of it distracts her for a moment, but before she can collect herself, the door opens. Her breath catches, unbidden. She had forgotten that she knocked.
He’s not sure what to say; she sees that clearly. She opens her mouth, but finds she too, has no words.
At this, he smiles and...
4 tags
again and again by rainer maria rilke
Again and again, however we know the landscape of love and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names, and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others fall: again and again the two of us walk out together under the ancient trees, lie down again and again among the flowers, face to face with the sky.
November 2011
1 post
1 tag
“The books somehow made him smaller, not larger, as if they were whispering,...”
– James Woods in Shelf Life: Packing up my father-in-law’s library
(via 52books)
October 2011
5 posts
2 tags
people say math is logical
In reality, numbers are more abstract than words. You see, there are a limited amount of words, but an infinite amount of numbers, not to mention the imaginary ones. It’s quite scary actually, to think about. If you could compare eternity, or forever, with anything, it would be numbers.
1 tag
“Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I...”
– Haruki Murakami (via hanakokoko)
1 tag
“I always say that I wish to have three sorts of people as my friends, those who...”
– a character from Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories. (via paintedfictions)
1 tag
one year later
and just like that, she was back in his life. It wasn’t until she knocked on his door and entered without his permission—“Can I borrow scissors,” she said nonchalantly, picking them from his desk gingerly—that he knew she had come back. She even looked him in the eyes before she turned and walked out his door. In disbelief, he heard her door close.
He wanted to...
1 tag
“If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM...”
– Rosemarie Urquico (via haystacke)
September 2011
1 post
2 tags
the grass is greener
you always want what you can’t have.
August 2011
1 post
“What kills love? Only this: Neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me....”
– Jeanette Winterson, Written On The Body (via chrstn)
July 2011
3 posts
1 tag
4 tags
temporal
The side of my face has gone numb.
It’s not a completely unpleasant feeling. A warm sort of prickly, faint burning sensation.
I know if I shift the way I am sitting, I can remedy this. But once the feeling is gone, I won’t be able to replicate it.
I sit like this for as long as I can.
No Great Illusion: Selecting a Reader →
nogreatillusion:
First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry at the loneliest moment of an afternoon, her hair still damp at the neck from washing it. She should be wearing a raincoat, an old one, dirty from not having money enough for the cleaners. She will take out her glasses,…
June 2011
2 posts
1 tag
“Editing is just like writing, except hateful, and in reverse. Instead of...”
– How to Become an Author, in 5 Incredibly Difficult Steps
Link via Eve, who said, “#1 should be skipped unless you really, really want to feel bad about your bank balance.” I concur.
(via elkdogmen)
I am always simultaneously depressed as hell and kind of exhilarated when I read things like this....
4 tags
this is just to say, by william carlos williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
May 2011
5 posts
3 tags
a polish poem
I want to do what you ask of me; in the way you ask, for as long as you ask, because you ask it.
3 tags
stealing back time
That’s how she feels, when she’s flying from east to west. A 6-hour flight magically becomes three hours.
She swears her skin glows for days after this flight.
2 tags
more strange encounters
They meet again some years later, and he knows she doesn’t recognize him. Truth be told, he doesn’t quite recognize her either. She’s thinner, older—harder, he would say. Glossy, just a touch too much eye liner. Hey, he says, reaching out to tap her.
She turns to look at him. After a few seconds, she smiles with teeth. Then, curiously, she takes his head with both hands...
2 tags
existence
It’s hard to get through the day when your heart is beating so furiously. It feels like it’s at the back of your throat. One uncontrolled sob, and you’ll have a heart in your hands.
Can you love something (someone) that’s never existed? You don’t even know what it (she. he.) would’ve looked liked. What it would’ve been like. It never made it past the...
3 tags
hell is a state of mind
When she wakes up, she doesn’t bother to dress. It’s a Saturday after all. The coffee is brewing away and its fragrance fills her nose. She inhales deeply. It’s so pleasant, she’s not even bothered by the lone spider in the corner of the kitchen. Its presence is ignored, in spite of her (just slight!) discomfort. As she drinks her (overly bitter, burnt coffee), she notices...
April 2011
4 posts
4 tags
on fear
It is a house with many rooms. There are many staircases, most lead to nowhere. Many windows, none that open. Many doors, some that don’t close. One (working) bathroom. A fountain (that’s complete with a lifesize [?] mermaid sculpture, hair and all). A gargoyle resides on its roof.
Its owner fears ghosts you see.
One of the open doors leads to an astonishing library with an...
2 tags
one day
One day, I’ll wake up, and this life will have been a dream.
1 tag
as though cattle
Sometimes she forgets the simple pendant around her neck is a collar. Its weight is slight, and reminds her of times before this, when she would wear necklaces that sparkled brilliantly.
Her collar is the only adornment she wears aside from her simple, brown robes, and her head covering. Brown for purity, a covered head for modesty. Bare feet for humility.
It’s not as if she’s...
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
spring
The first day of spring comes with fierce winds and light rain. Tomorrow, there will be a storm; she can smell it, like the freshness of just-cut grass. She crinkles her nose.
There is nothing to do but wait for the storm to pass, for the bursting of blooming flowers, for the crispness of new air, for the revived radiance of sun.
1 tag
our own world
It’s too easy to get caught up in it. You see what you want to see; you even think that this is how others see. It’s presumptuous and selfish, but you don’t know because you’re in your own world.
February 2011
2 posts
3 tags
“I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft,...”
– Elm, Sylvia Plath (via nogreatillusion)
3 tags
visceral
The smell of burnt coffee wakes her.
She crinkles her nose at the smell before she opens her eyes and slips her feet into her slippers in one easy moment. Her feet drag as she shuffles to the kitchen.
He is there, dressed in white, pouring the (burnt) coffee into two mugs (matching, she notices). He smiles at her and holds out the pink mug. Mine, she thinks and reaches out to take.
It’s...
January 2011
2 posts
3 tags
playing dress up
This growing up business feels like a game, but with serious consequences. Every two weeks, money is deposited in my account; every week, I buy groceries; every day, I pull up sheer black tights, loop a metallic rose gold belt through a skirt, and fasten a piece of jewelry on.
When I look in the mirror, it’s a little girl playing dress up. Small and scared, but she puts up a front, because,...
3 tags
sorting through priorities
It’s a test that’s not unlike driving through thick, white mist—frightening beautiful, sheer terror, not knowing what turn will be your last. The answer is obvious, stop until the fog subsides, but somehow, the brake’s not within your reach, and you accelerate at full speed.
It’s not until you feel that drop in your stomach that you realize you’ve driven off...
December 2010
7 posts
5 tags
starting over
I know there are days that’ve felt like eternities, when tiredness has seeped into your bones without the sun even close to setting, when you’ve said and done things you wish you hadn’t. Your life is circular, and even worse, spiral, and downwards at that. Sometimes you wish you could start over, fresh and new.
(The secret that’s not so secret is, you can; rather, you are, but not because of...
4 tags
things we want that we are too proud to ask for:
First, touch. Second, compassion. Third, love.
-
I just want a hug. A real one, body to body, too close to breathe. It’s more than that though; I want the intimacy that’s implied. Somehow, that’s too much to ask for. (But it’s all in my head; I think I’m the only one, but I’m not.
It’s because we’re overexposed, over stimulated, over hyped. We hear too much about love and what it’s supposed to...
2 tags
kingdom come
When he died, he forgot his name. In fact he forgot everything when heaven came to earth—where and when he had lived, the friends he had, the church he went to, his parents, his wife, his kids—all gone.
The thing was, he didn’t really care to remember. It didn’t matter if he remembered or not, because there was only one thing you could do in heaven.
.
God was bigger, brighter, and better than...
4 tags
the fountain of youth
He chanced upon the lake from pure desperation of thirst. It wasn’t until his first long drink that he looked up and saw her.
She was painfully thin and old (he could see that from far away), and she gazed at the water so earnestly that he thought surely she must be looking for something.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said politely, but she didn’t so much as blink....
2 tags
false solidarity
The worst feeling is when you think you’ve made a connection when really, all you’ve done is drink a few beers and insult some people you commonly hate. That’s not a connection. At most, it’s a grasping at straws.
3 tags
duty
She wakes up one day, and it’s a sudden thought, but truth: I don’t love you anymore. She knows this like she knows the sun will rise and set, and he is next to her, still sleeping. I don’t love you anymore, she whispers too softly, the warms half formed in her mouth without any audible sound.
When he wakes up, she is downstairs making breakfast. She tilts her head up expectantly for a kiss...
2 tags
islands
It strikes her suddenly, how lonely people are. How lonely people want to be. A simple conversation with a friend, “I don’t get why we all have to go. I like being alone. I want to be alone.”
and then thinking, it’s not okay to be an island.
Instead she nods sympathetically and lets the waves envelope her.
November 2010
2 posts
4 tags
desperation
In the middle of cutting the cold, rubbery egg into three perfect pieces, she suddenly remembers a time before this. Long, leisurely strolls through farmer’s markets, sunlight dancing on her face. The fresh smells of bread and cheese, the bright colors of fruits, all kinds. The bustle of people, laughing, shouting, arguing, singing. When she closes her eyes, she can taste the crispness of...