life isn't fair

z

[frailbug]

you think that you're so alone in the world then you read literature from hundreds of years ago and you realize that other people have always felt this way

[wetheurban]

Sending love to anyone who is just… tired.

Of the bills. The responsibility. The emotional labor. The constant pressure of trying to make life work for themselves and the people they love.

Be gentle with yourself. The caregiver deserves care, too.

[mr-mistyeyed]

would u still love me if i were stuck in a cycle i've never been able to break

[inkskinned]

you get used to it, but it's tiring, because they need you to understand your own life as a series of goalposts. what college are you going to, what's your major going to be, whatcha gonna do with that, oh where will you settle down, when can i expect grandkids.

for the longest time my goals have been so blurry that they track into each other, their undefined edges slipping quietly back into the soft night. today i want to be a writer; tomorrow i will want to be a doctor, later i will wish i took that law school free ride. how the fuck do people just know what they want to do with their life?

where do you want to be in five years? i want to be alive; which is a huge step for me. ten years ago i would have said i want to be asleep and meant i hope that i'm dead by then.

but i want a yellow kitchen and a stand mixer. i want a garden and a fruit tree (cherry, if i can make that happen) and a big yard for my dogs to play in. i want to come home and read poetry out loud to someone and have them close their eyes to listen. i want a summer watergun fight. i want to make snowmen. i want to be the house to go to for halloween. i want my life to settle around me in a softness, for it to lay down gently. if i am very, very, very lucky, i want to travel; finally go someplace overseas.

of course i don't know what i want to be doing professionally. what i actually want to be doing is curling up beside my dog, settling in to read. i want to be making myself a cup of good coffee.

i can't answer the other questions. whenever people asked me what do you want to be when you grow up, i used to say i hope i'm happy.

i hope i'm still kind, five years from now. i hope i never get jaded and mean. i hope i have stayed in therapy. what do you picture yourself doing? when will you actually be an adult about this? why are you so afraid of being ambitious?

am i not ambitious? the other day i rearranged my furniture which doesn't quite fit into my apartment. i watered my plants. i'm going to try to propagate a cherry seed. my five year goal is to spend more time laughing. to lie down in a patch of sunwarm moss. to relax for a minute. to close my eyes and think oh thank god. this is why i stayed. this is finally it.

[kosmogrl]

one day I’ll get over it and the lump in my throat when I try to talk about it won’t exist

[remanence-of-love]

[kosmogrl]

september was practice… in october I’m getting my shit together

[kosmogrl]

in november I'm getting my shit together

[kosmogrl]

in december I’m getting my shit together

[architect-of-the-last-act]

Part I. The Fire of Winter, the Engulfing Snowfall

or alternatively: No fuel is worse than grief.

+ Winter and its snow, fire and its ash. Nothing survived the raging fires, but the following ashfall looked like the first snow. … If you make a wish on that day, does it also come true?

Part II | Part III | Part IV

authors below (and a surprise jeremy):

Illustrations from A Stepmother's Marchen | Triumph of Achilles, Louise Glück | War of the Foxes, Richard Siken | Nothing's New, Rio Romero | House of the Dragon | I Know the End, Phoebe Bridgers | Vincent Van Gogh | Never Love An Anchor, The Crane Wives | twitter/x post, lostaffections | F. Scott Fitzgerald | #6, AroarA | My Friend, Hayley Williams | yuki, age thirteen by m.h.w | David Levithan | Unknown | Unknown | The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald | Your Best American Girl, Mitski | Requiem [from Dear Evan Hansen, with modified lyrics fit to Pronoun Showdown, where this version was sung] | Foreigner's God, Hozier | Jennifer S. Cheng | Mirror Traps, Hera Lindsay Bird | The Next Time We Talk on Facebook, Clementine von Radics | The Hours, Michael Cunningham | The Burning, Venetta Octavia | Letters to Felice, Franz Kafka | 29 Days (The Morning You Marry Your True Love), Trista Mateer | Unknown | Habits, Genevieve Stokes | Salt, Nayyirah Waheed | Mabel: Matryoshka, Becca De La Rosa and Mabel Martin | tumblr post, hallow-bird | twitter/x post, lostaffections | Until I started choking on our memories, Tina Tran | 100 Love Sonnets, Pablo Neruda | Cynthia Go | Little Lion Man, Mumford & Sons | twitter/x post, sainticide | Two Minutes, The Amazing Devil

+ more jeremy because i love him dearly:

[reemillustrated]

[papayajuan2019]

i like lovers i like weirdos i like rooting for those who have already lost

[kosmogrl]

don’t take my defeatism too seriously I will always begin again and again no matter what

[kosmogrl]

I might sound miserable most of the time but at my core I’m a very hopeful person

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

what may seem like baby steps to some people may be big leaps for others. never underestimate your progress.

[becherdireinen]

that fight between your mind & your heart ain't no joke.

[kosmogrl]

changing is scary but so is staying the same changing is scary but so is staying the same changing is scary but so is staying the same changing is scary but so is staying the samechanging is scary but so is staying the same changing is scary but so is staying the same

[swordsonnet]

three specific kinds of terror, jacob geller / working for the knife, mitski / the magnus archives, ep. 92 "nothing beside remains"

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

hey so QUITTING SOMETHING THATS HORRIBLE FOR YOU DOESNT MAKE YOU A QUITTER. IT MEANS YOURE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW WHEN SOMETHING ISNT WORTH IT ANYMORE.

[llovelymoonn]

do you have or could you make a webweave about nostalgia? specifically of the yearning and grieving variety. it's killing me that all of it is gone forever, that all that remains is an echo, and that it will only keep fading. big yikes.

@robertszombie \\ jordanna kalman \\ jordanna kalman \\ @wearemadeofstardust0 \\ david foster wallace \\ jordanna kalman \\ okechukwu nzelu here again now \\ jordanna kalman \\ jordanna kalman \\ jordanna kalman

kofi