Oh, you found me.

Hello.

[ritavargas]

XLIII How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely, as men might strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,–I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!–and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.

from Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[ritavargas]

Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Tennyson, Excerpt from "Ulysses"

[ritavargas]

Sometimes it feels like the side that I'm on Plays the toughest hand, holds the longest stand Sometimes it feels like I'm all that they've got It's so hard to know I'm not what they want

"I'm Not Your Hero"

[ritavargas]

The Most Beautiful Suicide - Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the Empire State Building, 1947.

“At the bottom of the Empire State Building the body of Evelyn McHale reposes calmly in grotesque bier, her falling body punched into the top of a car.”

[thelastbillboard]

Nina Katchadourian

[ritavargas]

Wow.

[ritavargas]

-Caitlyn Siehl

[humansofnewyork]

"I’m always sad." "Are there certain thoughts associated with the sadness?" "No, the sadness is under the thoughts. It’s like when you’re on a camping trip, and it’s really cold, and you put on extra socks, and an extra sweater, but you still can’t get warm, because the coldness is in your bones." "Do you hope to get away from it?" "Not anymore. I just hope to come to peace with it."

[ritavargas]

They who are near to me do not know that you are nearer to me than they are. They who speak to me do not know that my heart is full with your unspoken words. They who crowd in my path do not know that I am walking alone with you. They who love me do not know that their love brings you to my heart.

Rabindranath Tagore

[ritavargas]

Lykke Li. I Never Learn.

[full-as-much-heart]

Overgrowth - Parker Fitzgerald & Riley Messina

[ritavargas]

Anne, I don’t want to live… . Now listen, life is lovely, but I Can’t Live It. I can’t even explain. I know how silly it sounds … but if you knew how it Felt. To be alive, yes, alive, but not be able to live it. Ay that’s the rub. I am like a stone that lives … locked outside of all that’s real… . Anne, do you know of such things, can you hear???? I wish, or think I wish, that I were dying of something for then I could be brave, but to be not dying, and yet … and yet to [be] behind a wall, watching everyone fit in where I can’t, to talk behind a gray foggy wall, to live but to not reach or to reach wrong … to do it all wrong … believe me, (can you?) … what’s wrong. I want to belong. I’m like a jew who ends up in the wrong country. I’m not a part. I’m not a member. I’m frozen.

Anne Sexton, "Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters"

[ritavargas]

Whenever I answer the phone It's never you Even if it was you It'd never be you Saying Hello it's me I love you so much I can hardly wait to see you Can I come over right now Yes yes yes yes So I hate the sound of the phone & worse To answer it Hello hello No I'm not me I'm not here I'll never be

-Jackson Mac Low, "Phone"

[ritavargas]

I love you and I want to say goodbye.

[worldssmallesttrampoline]

Oliver Beer

Oma’s Kitchen Floor, 2008

Linoleum floor tiles, 511cm x 350cm

"Oma was the name I called my grandmother. She put the lino down in the 1960’s and over four decades her feet gradually wore through the decorative pattern. Over the years marks appeared in front of the oven, the sink, the front door, where she turned around in front of the fridge, where she sat at her table shuffling her feet. Like a drawing made over forty years, these worn patches describe half a lifetime of movement.”

[ritavargas]

I meant everything I didn’t say.

[ritavargas]

tell me how the absence of you can fill a room

— V.M., “Please Do Not Die On Me: A Love Letter”

[ritavargas]

What should I do about the wild and the tame? The wild heart that wants to be free, and the tame heart that wants to come home. I want to be held. I don’t want you to come too close. I want you to scoop me up and bring me home at nights. I don’t want to tell you where I am. I want to keep a place among the rocks where no one can find me. I want to be with you.

—Jeanette Winterson, "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit"