personal press

sᴄʀᴀᴘʙᴏᴏᴋ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ sᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ sᴇʟꜰ

[howifeltabouthim]

In childhood, that early instinct to survive by becoming invisible.

Joyce Carol Oates, from The Falls

[poetic-questions]

—Franz Kafka, "The Diaries" (from the travel diaries, 1912)

[originalromanticsir]

When you're committed, the weather doesn't matter. In travel - or love.

[howifeltabouthim]

He had not been able to understand her reasoning. Of course, women in love were never reasonable.

Mary Balogh, from The Secret Pearl

[howifeltabouthim]

See? See how I love you. In spite of our small cruelties, and bigger mistakes. I love you. Then. And still.

Abigail Dean, from The Death of Us

[philosophybits]

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims

[derangedrhythms]

If haunting is anything, perhaps that’s what it is; time in the wrong place.

Jeanette Winterson, from ‘As Strong As Death’ published in ‘Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories’

[dailyclassicart]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir - "Julie Manet with Cat (detail)" (1877)

[shopping4images]

not every shadow is yours

acrylic paint, pencil, archival inkjet print on canvas 30x40”

2025

Tashi Salsedo

[ohandreagibson]

“Say Yes When two violins are placed in a room if a chord on one violin is struck the other violin will sound the note If this is your definition of hope This is for you The ones who know how powerful we are Who know we can sound the music in the people around us simply by playing our own strings for the ones who sing life into broken wings open their chests and offer their breath as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving Spare those intent on proving god is dead For you when your fingers are red from clutching your heart so it will beat faster For the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else For the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky This is for you This is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom Who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world has slapped them in the face with its lack of light For the mothers who feed their children first and thirst for nothing when they’re full This is for women And for the men who taught me only women bleed with the moon but there are men who cry when women bleed men who bleed from women’s wounds and this is for that moon on the nights she seems hung by a noose For the people who cut her loose and for the people still waiting for the rope to burn about to learn they have scissors in their hands This is for the man who showed me the hardest thing about having nothing is having nothing to give Who said the only reason to live is to give ourselves away So this is for the day we’ll quit or jobs and work for something real We’ll feel for sunshine in the shadows look for sunrays in the shade This is for the people who rattle the cage that slave wage built and for the ones who didn’t know the filth until tonight But right now are beginning songs that sound something like people turning their porch lights on and calling the homeless back home This is for all the shit we own and for the day we’ll learn how much we have when we learn to give that shit away This is for doubt becoming faith For falling from grace and climbing back up For trading our silver platters for something that matters like the gold that shines from our hands when we hold each other This is for the grandmother who walked a thousand miles on broken glass to find that single patch of grass to plant a family tree where the fruit would grow to laugh For the ones who know the math of war has always been subtraction so they live like an action of addition For you when you give like every star is wishing on you and for the people still wishing on stars this is for you too This is for the times you went through hell so someone else wouldn’t have to For the time you taught a 14 year old girl she was powerful This is for the time you taught a 14 year old boy he was beautiful For the radical anarchist asking a republican to dance cause what’s the chance of everyone moving from right to left if the only moves they see are NBC and CBS This is for the no becoming yes For scars becoming breath For saying I love you to people who will never say it to us For scraping away the rust and remembering how to shine For the dime you gave away when you didn’t have a penny For the many beautiful things we do For every song we’ve ever sung For refusing to believe in miracles because miracles are the impossible coming true and everything is possible This is for the possibility that guides us and for the possibilities still waiting to sing and spread their wings inside us ‘Cause tonight saturn is on his knees proposing with all of his ten thousand rings that whatever song we’ve been singing we sing even more The world needs us right now more than it ever has before Pull all your strings Play every chord If you’re writing letters to the prisoners start tearing down the bars If you’re handing our flashlights in the dark start handing our stars Never go a second hushing the percussion of your heart Play loud Play like you know the clouds have left too many people cold and broken and you’re their last chance for sun Play like there’s no time for hoping brighter days will come Play like the apocalypse is only 4…3…2 but you have a drum in your chest that could save us You have a song like a breath that could raise us like the sunrise into a dark sky that cries to be blue Play like you know we won’t survive if you don’t but we will if you do Play like saturn is on his knees proposing with all of his ten thousand rings that we give every single breath this is for saying–yes This is for saying yes”

—

[mournfulroses]

Franz Kafka, from a letter to Milena Jesenka featured in "Letters to Milena,

[askyea-poesy]

There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.

George R.R. Martin

[the-evil-clergyman]

Athenais by John William Godward (1908)

[tordenvejr]

art will save you, being unreasonably passionate about something niche will save you, letting past sources of joy show you the way back to yourself will save you, earnestness over composure will save you, the natural world will save you, caring for something bigger than yourself will save you, daring to be seen will save you, kindness not as a whim but a principle will save you, appreciation as a practice will save you, daring to try something new will save you, grounding will save you, love will save you, one good nights sleep will save you

[philosophybits]

“Straighten up your body, unify your vision, and the harmony of Heaven will come to you. … Virtue will be your beauty, the Way will be your home, and stupid as a newborn calf, you will not try to find out the reason why.”

— Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Zhuangzi, Watson tr. (Ch 22)

[metamorphesque]

Anthem, Leonard Cohen

[jenn1fersbody]

[mournfulroses]

Simone de Beauvoir, from a diary entry featured in Diary of a Philosophy Student