nitimur in vetitum. @aerizusa - Tumblr Blog

reading list (summer 2026) romeo and juliet, william shakespeare beowulf, anonymous (tolkien translation) stigmata: escaping texts, hélène cixous the book of disquiet, fernando pessoa

#will be updating #this is purely to motivate me via semi-public self-inflicted pressure

lux-tenebrae

Johann Peter Eckermann, Conversations with Goethe, trans. Allan Blunden (Penguin Classics, 2007), 11 de marzo de 1828.

#johann peter eckermann #conversations with goethe #allan blunden #on poetry #the unconscious #daemonic

theoptia

Friedrich Nietzsche, from Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche

#friedrich nietzsche #letters #prose #lit #body #soul #existence #trauma

... those hours when the landscape forms a halo around life...

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #being #beauty #halo

ever since i learned that gallstones do not as a matter of fact pass following a flare up of biliary colic and instead roll back into the gallbladder i have lived in a state of existential terror and permanent hunger

#for ten years i have not questioned this #i suppose living with a condition that developed in my mid-teens did not naturally rouse much curiosity or caution #and it always made sense to me that the obstruction would cause pain while the sudden relief would come from unblockage via passing #but i sure wish i had known a lot sooner. and pushed for medical intervention #i could've had my gallbladder removed years ago...#but on the bright side i'm now on the waiting list for an abdominal ultrasound to confirm the presence of gallstones #and following that i'll request a laparoscopic cholecystectomy #and then i'll eat every single triggering food in the world all at once #personal

majestativa

You look for me and I for you; your hunger is my hunger for you. I want you.

CARMEN CONDE — Woman without Eden / Mujer sin Edén, transl. by Alexis Levitin & José R. de Armas, (1985)

#carmen conde #woman without eden #alexis levitin #josé r. de armas #lit #poetry #hunger #beloved

A tenuous pane of glass stands between me and life. However clearly I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #dissociation

How could I not dream you? How could I not?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #dreaming #intimacy

I could be ashes in your hearth, what does it matter if I am mere dust Or a window in your room, what does it matter if I am mere empty space? Or an hour in your hourglass, what does it matter if I pass, if, because I am yours, I will endure; what does it matter if I die if, because I am yours, I will not die, or if I lose you, if losing you means finding you?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #belonging #intimacy

Perhaps my dreaming you was simply finding you, perhaps my loving you was simply seeing you.

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #intimacy

the--framed--maelstrom

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written in blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

#friedrich nietzsche #thus spake zarathustra #lit #prose #blood #spirit

Perhaps by dreaming you, I am creating a real you, but in another reality; perhaps you will be mine there, in that other purer worlds, where we will love each other but never touch, with a different kind of embrace and other more essential ways of possessing one another?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #dreaming #possession

derangedrhythms

...have you ever experienced an irresistible liking for someone which means that, although you are seeing this person for the very first time, you feel that you have known him for a long time and wonder where and when you may have seen him; so much so that, unable to recall either the place or the time, you come to think that it must have been in a world before our own and that the attraction is a reawakened memory?

Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, tr. Robin Buss

#alexandre dumas #the count of monte cristo #prose #beloved

Perhaps my only dream is you, perhaps when I press my face to yours I will read in your eyes those impossible landscapes, those false tediums, those feelings that inhabit the gloom of my wearinesses and the grottoes of my disquiets. Who knows, perhaps the landscapes of my dreams are simply my way of not dreaming you? I don't know who you are, but do I know precisely who I am? Do I know what it means to dream in a way that merits calling you my dream? How do I know that you are not a part, possibly a real, essential part, of me? And how do I know that I am not the dream and you the reality, or that I am your dream rather than you being a dream I am dreaming?

Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet (tr. Margaret Jull Costa)

#fernando pessoa #margaret jull costa #the book of disquiet #lit #prose #dreams