Untitled

[2006barbie-deactivated20210102]

from “The Carrying” by Ada Limón

[asoftwrongness]

Ruminations on codependency (Like mother, like daughter)

[tenderpotter]

E.M. Forster (1879-1970) about Mohammed el-Adl // Sappho (c. 630-c. 570 BC) // Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley (soldiers in WWII) // Richard Siken (1967-)

[inkskinned]

there’s this philosophy question - how many boards on a sailboat can you replace before the ship is no longer itself? 

my brother asks me while we are making tacos. 

“one hundred,” i tell him.

“What if the boat is really big?” 

“one hundred boards. i laugh while cutting up lettuce. 

“what if-”

“nope. it’s one. hundred. every time.” one hundred boards and one hundred nails and one hundred days on the ocean. 

i don’t know, after all. you’re not supposed to know this kind of thing. you are supposed to ask this kind of question while sinking deeper into leather chairs and stroking your jawbone. 

here is what i do know - it has been over a hundred days for me. it has been one hundred nails and one hundred reasons i have had to find by examining the world and the softness of skin.

for so long, i felt patchwork. i was assembled in thin i-tried-to-get-better. i felt gaping, full of fanged darkness, a facsimile of a person. an inch from drowning. somehow fooling others i was fine when every corner of my soul was dripping with seasalt.

but it has been one hundred boards. i have taken out and replaced and taken out and replaced and taken out and made better. i have built the prow of this boat so many times that i can navigate it by moonless yawn. each time the crest of the wave comes into me - i know what will bend. i know what will break. and i know i will be okay, and i will find some way to replace it.

the things that have been done to me have been left on different shores. they have been remodeled into warm wood and strong doors and i am a different ship than the girl he touched and i am a different ship than hiding cuts and i am a different ship that doesn’t worry if she’s actually enough.

i am a different ship. i am laughing about philosophy questions. i am trying to learn how to speak better french. i only sew things closed with dental floss - i learned that two ships ago. i am making tacos in a warm room. i don’t count calories or craft lies or always wish i was still asleep. i still flinch if you move too quickly. but i am still building.

and i will be a different ship, a hundred different ways. and it will be beautiful to witness.

[assdddffggg-blog]

[loveletter2you]

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/i-know-what-you-think-of-me/

[raiain]

the moon asks a question by dirgewithoutmusic

illustrated by purutsukid