CurlsInClouds

Literature, art, coffee

[firstfullmoon]

Anne Sexton, “Knee Song,” in The Complete Poems [ID in alt text]

[loscheveresyaestantomados]

“Of course I have a self here, and a new family, new cats, new jokes. But I keep trying to remember who I was in English.”

— A Manual for Cleaning Women, Lucia Berlin

[weltenwellen]

Frank O'Hara, Selected Poems

[weltenwellen]

Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

[weltenwellen]

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation

[theotreptos]

Simone Weil, “The Love of God and Affliction,” Waiting for God

[redrola]

[itspileofgoodthings]

I love invisible string so much because it is explicitly not about the moments but about the long, slow unraveling of time and the picture created across the span of years. I am obsessed with moments, full-on obsessed, and I find it so hard to let go of my belief that all happiness in the world is contained in one perfect moment and that isn’t necessarily wrong but it does make me miss the idea of time as an important factor in a story and invisible string just takes that tightly held, perennial search for the perfect moment and gently opens it up and says “Hey Maria it’s okay if you go to centennial park and imagine that the perfect moment is coming and then it doesn’t come because the love of your life is in England working in a yogurt shop and so obviously can’t stumble across you reading picturesquely in the park” and I know that’s a weird thing to need to be told but I did need to be told that! I needed to be told that lots of moments will be in themselves disappointments, will fall flat and foolish and will sting as they do, but that it’s okay because a bigger picture, one I’m not in control of, is at work.

[detailedart]

“Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.” - Nathaniel Hawthorne. Details of Abraham Pether’s night visions (1756-1812).

[curlsinclouds]

If you are told on a daily basis that people who look like you are unattractive and undeserving of love, a natural reaction would be to seek out that which is being denied to you as a form of validation of self-worth.

-Why are all my favourite bloggers dating white men? by Alexandra Oti

[curlsinclouds]

“I think of how keenly I’ve been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men.”

Luster, Raven Leilani

[curlsinclouds]

“About Karel: I don’t think it’ll bother you that in my opinion it was a one-sided love there, with all the love on your side. You’re your father’s daughter that way. Enjoying people no matter what.”

Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi

[extractandrecite]

“I hate that my life is teaching me that I can only be loved if I put my love out of reach and drift above people until they love my remoteness.”

— Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

[mysharona1987]

[inkskinned]

there is a very strange idea that exists that we are ill by choice; that we have never tried to get better. i have been told to climb mountains or swing from trees or learn to cope silently. i have been told about yoga, about crash dieting, about using extra pillows or less sugar, about deleting my social media, about being more adventurous, about parties i should attend, about books to read, places to travel, people to kiss, dresses to buy. that all of these individually could be the cure, or maybe if i mix them right i could wake up indestructible. 

the thing that kills me is i’ve always tried it. i’ve done it. i’ve already used and overused physical activity to marginalize anxiety. i’ve eaten nothing but vegan organic solutions and i’ve also treated myself to everything fattening. i’ve done yoga and i’m good at it but i’m bad about keeping sugar-free. i deleted my social media, tried not having toxic friends, read self-help books about being a better person. i went to the parties, i dressed up nicely and smiled broadly, i studied harder in anticipation for when i couldn’t study at all, i wore bright colors or stayed out in the rain a second longer. i grew plants and pet dogs and tried it all.

when you are bad, it isn’t a matter of changing your attitude, of mind over matter. why would i do something when it doesn’t make me feel happy. it’s hard to get up the energy enough as it is, why bother when it fills me with numbness? the fact of the matter is that i go so cold i could hold the sun without burning. that’s what it is. i could be doing everything perfectly. i could be doing only my favorite things. it doesn’t make it go away. healing just takes time and patience. i grit my teeth and survive it. 

stop assuming in my life i’ve never tried. i made it this far. you can be damn sure i’ve sampled every silly magazine cure and more. you’re not witnessing someone who just began the fight. you’re witnessing a seasoned warrior in battle and telling them you suggest using a knife.

[merulae]

“Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.”

— Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

[animationsource]

Belladonna of Sadness (1973) dir. eiichi yamamoto