Girlwithfoggedglasses - Bookworm - Tumblr Blog

marlena by julie buntin

I'm going to spend this summer saying hello to people and smiling even when I don't feel like it. I don't want to be alone this year, so afraid. Angry at inevitable change. Angry too with the people who enjoy it while I cannot. My life will be good, I've been saying over and over again. My life will be good even if I can't remember how, even if I can't see the possibility it still exists.

- Chloeinletters

I feel a little less alone when I’m standing over the stove cooking a meal my mother used to make when I was a kid without looking at the recipe

I didn't know what to call it, what was happening between us, but I liked it. It felt silly and fragile and good.

"The problem of pain is that I can not feel my father's, and he can not feel mine. This, I suppose, is also the essential mercy of pain."

Eula Biss, The Pain Scale

It is late now, I am a bit tired; the sky is irritated by stars. And I love you, I love you, I love you-and perhaps this is how the whole enormous world, shining all over, can be created-out of five vowels and three consonants.

Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra

If I stick around for too long i get stuck there feeling stupid  for thinking there was something more..

- from a short film "The Lonely Planet"

A woman's heart is as tender as the sound of falling utensils on her kitchen floor.

Nostalgia

Christina’s world, Andrew Wyeth//Those Sweet and Painful Memories, Danny Castillones Sillada//When we were young, The Killers//Youngblood, Five Seconds of Summer//If My Body Could Speak; “Concerns from a hot-boxed jeep”, Blythe Baird//Little talks, Of Monsters and Men//Maureen Paley//From Collected Poems; “The Return of the Exile,” George Seferis//Circle Game, Joni Mitchell//Anne Magill//Head in the clouds, Hayd//A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit//The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Mike Flanagan

She is a 10 but she lives in disbelief.

— a girl is a haunted house, tathève simonyan

[text ID: “I could’ve lived like this”, echoed in my head. / As I looked around, my eyes unthinkingly clung to places where I could’ve hidden my selves: the ones that didn’t come to being and the one that I was. In the cupboards of this kitchen I could’ve buried all the women I could’ve grown into. While doing so, I would’ve put on the apron of the one who inhabited the kitchen. The cups and the glasses would’ve made place for me. I could’ve easily found a home in between the kitchen table and refrigerator. As the fragrance of rosemary and thyme found their way to me, a picture found its way to the back of my eyes: a hushed scene, full of contentment, a shot of me standing in the center of this kitchen, feet thick brown trucks giving birth to dozens of snakelike radixes, covered in colorful moss, devoid of flowers but who needs flowers when all they do is wilt anyway? I would’ve thought so, had I been the me of that frame. / I could’ve been content here, not happy, but content. The cutlery and the plates would’ve made place for me. The dull roar of the washing machine would’ve hidden my cries, with the same diligence it sheltered my mother’s. The “what ifs” of this particular scenario smelled of cinnamon and vanilla. / I could’ve been content here. I thought as I placed the coffee cup on the countertop next to the gas stove: the surface always wet for it filled the space between the sink and the stove, in between water and fire.  / I could’ve been content here. I repeated as I unscrewed the lid of the coffee jar and took out a spoonful of the umber powder. / While turning on the gas and putting the cezve on its designated place, I cursed the mind that yearned for more, yearned to be more than what it was supposed to be. I cursed the eyes that only saw what was not in front of them, hands that wished to touch what wasn’t theirs to touch and the tongue that longed to taste what wasn’t hers to taste. I cursed myself because I understood that I could’ve been content here, and as the umber froth fought its way to the surface, my tears caved in to the gravitational force.]

As long as there is love, there will be grief.

— Heidi Priebe

SHE HATED HER LIFE, NOT BECAUSE IT WAS BAD, BUT BECAUSE WHEN YOU HATE YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR BODY, IT'S HARD TO ENJOY THE REST.

Franny Choi I Guess By Now I Thought I'd Be Done With Shame / Erika L. Sánchez Amá / Franz Kafka Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors / Hanif Abdurraqib A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance / Richard Siken Birds Hover over the Trampled Field / Hélène Cixous The Selected Poems of Hélène Cixous / Alberto Zamboni Ovunque / Oscar Nin / Richard Siken Crush

i. Franny Choi I Guess By Now I Thought I'd Be Done With Shame [ Somewhere, / there is a version of me that isn't neck-deep in her invented filth. ]

ii. Erika L. Sánchez Amá [ Amá, I leave because / I feel like an unfinished / poem, because I'm always trying to bridge the difference. ]

iii. Franz Kafka Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors [ I don't feel particularly proud of myself. / But when I walk alone in the woods or lie in the meadows, all is well. ]

iv. Hanif Abdurraqib A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance [ I've run out of language to explain the avalanche of anguish I feel when faced with this world, and so if I can't make sense of this planet, I'm better off imagining another. ]

v. Richard Siken Birds Hover the Trampled Field [ The enormity of my desire disgusts me. ]

vi. Hélène Cixous The Selected Poems of Hélène Cixous [ You horrify me. But at the same time, I horrify myself. We are horrible. ]

vii. Alberto Zamboni Ovunque [ The silhouettes of two human figures stand in a room. The background is blurred around them. ]

viii. Oscar Nin [ Distressed painting portrait of a man. ]

ix. Richard Siken Crush [ a gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it. ]

the reader's urge to reread the books that took away your breath as you're reading them the first time

Somewhere I knew that despite my fear of never becoming like my father I turned out to be very similar to him, not in looks but in actions. The only thing we knew was how to surrender, how to surrender our entire belonging, how to not form an opinion based on our beliefs, and how to live into the oblivion of our worthlessness. We thought we were a burden on everything and probably on everyone, we were undeserving, and we weren't meant to be given a life that ultimately fell in our laps. It's cathartic and pitiful now that I come to think of it.

But an unquenchable love for you has never left me...

{Quotes: Alejandra Pizarnik, Approximations/Simone de Beauvoir, from Diary of a Philosophy Student: Volume 2, 1928-9; Sunday, October 7/chen chen, nature poem in ‘when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities’/sue zhao/ Sylvia path / Maggie Nelson, Bluets/Richard siken/Ingeborg Bachmann, In the Storm of Roses from ‘The Poem for the Reader’, tr. Mark Anderson ,paintings: pinterest}

The Pisani’s family library at Museo Correr, Venice.

> Photo: Erin Petley.

im just someones weird sister

In the name of healing I bite chunks of myself daily, spit them out in my hand with the intention to wash it away later

Eventually, i end up over analyzing them, like everything else in my life

grafts of all the causes I’m still here, glued together by my mother’s fears

be the Alpha female, she said. “feed on your most beloved, a cup of the moon’s blood every night before bed for you to run alone forever, run wild, never slip”

I Shower myself with self-loathing, lick my own wounds close Keep me sane, keep me safe

loneliness to me is just another insecurity that is dangling from my prefrontal cortex, dangling right in front of my eyes… for me to see the world through it.

I spend hours looking at the bloody chunks in my hand, thinking where did i go wrong ? how much can I hold on to this heartache ?

I've been running around it all my life, running around red lines, red lines circle me, i run in circles around myself I’m all that I’ve ever knew, yet, I only know myself in fading

A distant memory, a deja vu…

All I really know, is that the only stable in my life is the fact that I exist, and that it’s a temporary state.

jamais vu.

will the lines fade if i eat what i bit off of myself again ? if i chew and chew and chew… If i teach myself to stomach it will i be whole again?

is holding on to those pieces enough to satisfy my desire to be held ?

Or does it make me a feral rogue ?

Schizophrenic delusions ticking in my head…

Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault that I’m this alone…

then again I wasn’t the one feeding myself all the insecurities as a young child.

I wasn’t the one playing pretend.

It was never my fault, my mother thought faking happiness is the way to protect me, it was never my fault father wasn’t interested in the details, as long as I was his perfect girl…

Now, I can’t hold on to anything the way i hold on to the lunatic turmoil that makes me sway and laugh on my own personal misery.

Call it history.

Hide behind defensive humor, get my inner demons drunk on caffeine, mistake that high for happiness cause mama did too…

And wait for caffeine withdrawal to wake us up, both of us…

I’ve never been hangover, but I imagine this is how it’ll feel

The aura ? The migraine?

The urge to throw myself up to be reborn clean.

•••

•Quotes: Olivia Laing/Heather Havrilesky/ Olivia Laing/ Marya Hornbacher/Anaïs Nin/Camille Norton/ Alice Oseman/ eduardo C. Corral/anne carson/ Joanne Harris/ Hannah Green/Hannah Green/Lisel Mueller

•Original context: sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Sasha Hartslief, Late Night Shower, 2021. 2. Getting Up by Vincent Giarrano. 3.illustration by Owen Gent. 4. The Lovers on the Bridge, 1991. 5. "Beverly Edmier 1967' Keith Edmier, 1998

•song recommendation:

P.s: the whole album is a masterpiece ! Give it a try, thank me later.

poetry recommendations for march

If You Knew by Ellen Bass

Living With the News by W.S.Merwin

Spring by Mary Oliver

The Return by Mary Oliver

Green, Green is My Sister’s House by Mary Oliver

Black Telephone by Richard Siken

Proverbs and Songs by Antonio Machado

this night - for you by Halina Poswiatowska

a splinter of my imagination by Halina Poswiatowska

in your perfect fingers by Halina Poswiatowska

Mouthful of Forevers by Clementine von Radics

Every Day You Play…. by Pablo Neruda

first thought after seeing you smile by Warsan Shire

Love by Czeslaw Milosz

Insomniac by Sylvia Plath

buy me a coffee

poems about unrequited love

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I think I should have loved you presently by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Appeal by Anne Brontë 

The Side Effects of Eating Too Many Clementines by Alessia Di Cesare

Doesn’t every Poet Write a Poem About Unrequited Love by Mary Oliver

I shall forget you presently, my dear (Sonnet IV) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Minstrel Man by Langston Hughes

The Want of You by Angelina Weld Grimké

I’d Like to Live With You by Marina Tsvetaeva 

A Cry by Sara Teasdale

Wind and Window Flower by Robert Frost 

I loved you by Alexander Pushkin

The Moon and the Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath

We Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

Warming Her Pearls by Carol Ann Duffy

if you’d like to support me … 🌼

You never know if happy memories are going to become sad ones. They glow and shine in the vast realms of our subconscious, making that part of our brain feel like it’s filled with glitter. We pick them up and cradle them like expensive cats, or wriggle into them like they are jumpers we’ve left to warm on a radiator. Until the day when, for one reason or another, life can suddenly make this happy memory into a sad memory instead. Good memories exist in the naivety of not knowing any better. I guess a happy memory is only logged and labelled accordingly if you can live in a moment without fear of it going wrong. In the moments when true happiness is so overwhelming that you forget to be scared of it ending. But, in time, those moments can easily become bittersweet.

The Places I've Cried in Public by Holly Bourne

'You defined me with borrowed words and I let you'