armistice

this is a side blog for things I like and/or make (@aenqa)

[petrichord]

no, don’t worry. this is just who I am now.

the idea that internal thoughts can shape external realities feels false, except when it feels true. when trouble begets despair begets trouble. and when I used to float through it so safely—

I felt the impact and the slide, every soft inch of soil crumbling between my fingers, so I know how far I fell. and I know I don’t have it in me to climb back up. it’s okay, though—it’s cool down here, the light isn’t so harsh

and where it filters in I love it so much more. I think I love it so much more

[petrichord]

In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead. They're kind of scary.

[augur-y]

She imagined a mother who would look for a moment at her, with the eyes really looking at her not just her shape or dirtiness or bother, but at her, to the dreaming core, and say her name. For a moment that was all she wanted in the world, that the Mother would look up and say her name. A name would pin her back into the world, make her belong inside it again; a name bound one person to another, made them belong to each other. Then she would do anything, anything, without complaint. “Take him, will you?” said the Mother without looking up.

—Shruti Swamy, The Archer

[augur-y]

Matrilineage [Recovered] by Sarah Ghazal Ali

[tamsoj]

Anna Swir, from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, “The Same Inside,” tr. by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan  

[gnossienne]

i) sierra demulder, today means amen / ii) shearwater, “animal life” / iii) nizar qabbani, a love letter / iv) love - as defined by children (x)

[petrichord]

i just want to go home and play minecraft for 10 hours straight. surely that will cure my mental illness

[petrichord]

:{

[cithaerons]

Leila Chatti, Intake Form

[191195-deactivated20240210]

yea

[191195-deactivated20240210]

:/

[voirlvmer]

today I'm reflecting on Carl Phillips's Poetry Foundation commentary on "Radiance versus Ordinary Light":

"I think the poem comes down to, at least for these speakers, brutality. And whether you want to live at the absolute pitch of life, or not. Whether you settle for the ordinary light—that is, what I would call most people's lives. Or whether you push for radiance—at whatever cost."

"They like it, the harder it is. The harder the waves are, beating against them. And they experience this kind of brutality until that's how they like it. Until they're willing to see pleasure in something like 'I'll break your heart, break mine.' Because most people would say, 'Well, I'd rather not have my heart broken.'"

"I don't know. I'm one of those who thinks that it's kind of nice to have your heart routinely broken so you don't get out of practice. Then you really feel the world."

[petrichord]

Michael Cunningham – A Wild Swan

[petrichord]

I wanted to be saved. I sought rescue. I had dreams, most nights, of someone picking me up; arms with no face or name required. Just the promise of security was enough. The difficulty, of course, arrives upon awakening. There is nobody to save you from yourself. You fall, and nobody is there to catch you: you hit the ground and stay there. How difficult it is to pull yourself up when there is no promise of assistance. How easy it is to sink into the floor like a hand in wet concrete, the slow sucking, covering, and setting, so that the fall becomes permanent.

[petrichord]

[petrichord]

[90377]

秋芒魚路古道-擎天崗 by KC2013

[petrichord]

augury is the study of birds and the patterns of birds, and the interpretation of omens in relation to those patterns. you thought the turkey vulture meant something terrible was going to happen, but in this case, something had already died. turkey vultures keep the country clean. they pick away the rotting flesh of dead things and leave only the bleached hollow bones: beautiful. decay disappears. theirs is a thankless species. you understand, or recognize, or relate to them. you still suppress a shudder seeing one drop heavy into the air, wings like fingers, descending.