affectionately yours

charles 26 he/him - trans nb + queer ace - pursuing poetry literature and art. “Give back my book and take my kiss instead.”

[dearboypete]

"Why did you bring me here?" he said again. "Because I grew lonely," said the poet

[dearboypete]

The Well of Loneliness

"She walked on not caring very much where she went. It grew dusk and the dusk brought with it great longing ― the longing to see, to hear, to touch ― almost a physical pain it was, this longing to feel the nearness of Stephen."

― Radclyffe Hall

[dearboypete]

"We have been betrothed just half a year tonight," she chanted. "I have been faithful to you. I have loved you more and better every day. It seems to me you might come before long. I am very lonely. I wish I might go to sleep tonight with my head on your arm. Or if I might only know just where you are this minute. You would seem very near to me even though you were way across the world. You have been everything to me for half a year... I start in tomorrow on the second half and I am going to try and make it better than the first. I must keep always before my mind the thought of what you want me to be. I will try harder than ever before. But I am so tired! But when you come I shall rest."

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St Vincent Millay.

[dearboypete]

To A Stranger

Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you, All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured, You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me, I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only, You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return, I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

― Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass the Deathbed edition

[dearboypete]

Are You The New Person Drawn Toward Me?

Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy’d satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this façade, this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought O dreamer that it may be all maya, illusion?

― Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass the Deathbed edition

[dearboypete]

Recorders Ages Hence

Recorders ages hence, Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior, I will tell you what to say of me, Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover, The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his lover was fondest, Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it forth, Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear friends, his lovers, Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night, Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him, Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another wandering hand in hand, they twain apart from other men, Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curved with his arm the shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.

― Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass the Deathbed edition

[tortured-poets11]

I love you DVDs, I love you VHS Tapes, I love you Cassettes, I love you Records, I love you CDs, I love you Books, I love you Journals

[petaltexturedskies]

your heart requires moonlight

Virginia Woolf, from a letter to Vita Sackville-West dated 7 October 1928

[petaltexturedskies]

Emily Dickinson, in a letter to Emily Fowler Ford, wr.c. Spring 1884, from The Letters of Emily Dickinson: 1845-1886

[petaltexturedskies]

Anne Sexton, A Self-Portrait in Letters

[nununiverse]

Harald Moltke  Aurores boréales au-dessus de l'Islande , 1899 

[t-a-r-0-t]

Hey, stop scrolling.

Everyone who is reading this: I’m so glad you’re alive. I’m so proud of you. You are loved. I’m here. Don’t give up, we’re almost there.

Pass it on.

[nixscriptum]

[kabaks]

sometimes i think about gay people who lived centuries ago who thought they were all alone who imagined a world where they could live openly as themselves who met in secret spoke in code defied everything and everyone just to exist and i’m like..i gotta sit down. whew i gotta sit down

[l2g-deactivated20240513]

this is why this sappho fragment hits me so hard

[doomedvoyages]

[phantom-tail]

If this little book should see the light after its 100 years of entombment, I would like its readers to know that the author was a lover of her own sex and devoted the best years of her life in striving for the political equality and social and moral elevation of women.

“The Great Geysers of California” by Laura De Force Gordon, 1879, unearthed from a 100-year-old time capsule in San Francisco, 1979.

[levourdalak]

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our letters could be published in the future in a more enlightened time. Then all the world could see how in love we are.”

Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley, 1940s

[itgetsbetter]

annual reminder that this is who pride is for:

❤️ those who are out & proud

🧡 those who aren’t out at all

💛 people still figuring it all out

💚 folks trying out new labels or terms

💙 people who have always known

💜 people who are just realizing

🩷 those out there being loud

🤍 those waiting until it’s safer

🩵 our elders who came before to pave the way

🤎 and youth making change right here, right now

we see you, you're valid, you belong here.

promise.

[dearboypete]

Elaine Ralli's letter to Vincent

How I want to come back to you―yes I know I have just left―but the longing in me never leaves and this is a night that seems made for you and me. Do not worry―we are friends but I am still in love. . . . If I am not careful I will be covering this paper with words that make a poor endeavour to tell you I love you. . . . I can find nothing to express the hunger, the yearning, and oh! the love for you―and you are so small! Have you heard the rain? It is cold tonight and I'm too restless for rain―only for the touch of you―will I ever not want that?

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St Vincent Millay.

[dearboypete]

Of course I'm not in love with him. It's ridiculous. But I think of him all of the time and it makes me nervous. I don't want to think of anyone all the time, just yet . . . If I'm in love it isn't with his beauty, for I can't remember his face―I've tried to so much that it has become a blur in my mind. Somehow I seem to see the look of his eyes, and then again the curve of his mouth when he smiled, but it's gone in a flash. I can remember and feel all over again, the way I felt when he looked at me―but I can't remember how he looked.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St Vincent Millay.