roan s. graham

it's an anagram. follow for kaleidoscopic insights of some stranger's life.

[roansgraham]

Pls credit @roansgraham for repost

[roansgraham]

It finally happened and I could breathe again. Met one of my heroes. Felt this siren, deeply unsung and tortured by her own silence, spring from a well inside me. A song that so far has no words and perhaps no real tune. But I feel it coming. And that's the horror of potential.

[roansgraham]

Revamping. Gonna say what I think here from now on. Buckle up, it's gonna get weird.

[roansgraham]

I'm obsessed with the foreword of this collection of Chekhov's major plays by Robert Brustein. The book has the scent of tall trees where an old church might meet an inner city park. Time to read.

(Chekhov: The Major Plays | Ivanov • The Sea Gull • Uncle Vanya • The Three Sisters • The Cherry Orchard)

[roansgraham]

"And this grey spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought."

(This line from Tennyson's Ulysses always got me. With or without context, the words carried a current into my soul and filled me with that same desire. Ulysses- to see the ends of the world, and I, to see it through Ulysses' eyes.)

[roansgraham]

"I need to do something," I say, as I keep doing nothing. "Anything will do."

[roansgraham]

Beginning to wonder who I am really takes a toll on everything I thought I was.

S.F.M.

[roansgraham]

I don’t put dates in my journals. When I look back through them, I don’t want to associate certain times of my life with certain feelings. They are all my feelings, and those feelings shouldn’t have to be associated with a “different me” because it happened in the past. I want to love all of me, even the bad parts of my past, at all times. The struggles I went through are mine to keep and let go of as I please. - S.F.M.

[roansgraham]

She found it harder to write than before. Before, the mind's language and the pen's tongue were in complete confluence. Now they were syncopated. Off-beat. Hard to translate. Other things were no doubt getting easier for her. She wasn't sleeping so much. And when she looked out her mother's veiled windows she no longer had the urge to cry. But now she couldn't write. She could talk and make excuses like a butterfly fluttering its wings. But those words were distraction words. They were not fruit of effort. They were not said to be delicate or tasteful. As she stared at her blank paper, she began to think about this and how her mouth seemed full of weeds and her mind and heart of so few blooming flowers.

(I wrote this in the third person when I thought I was incapable of writing. I was obviously wrong. Even if you think you can't write you can. Just write what you think and trust yourself.)

[roansgraham]

You are a language I do not know.

I want to learn you.

I want to speak you.

I want to write and read you.

I want to understand you.

[roansgraham]

Note to self: don't forget that thing you forgot earlier.

[roansgraham]

I wrote this in 2018. I quite like how it sounds. Very eloquent compared to what I write now, which sounds more like something from a children's book. Not like children's books are any less wise.

I imagined a rock becoming a planet (personified as a woman) as it fell into orbit when I wrote this. My brother read it and said it sounded what love at first sight felt like.

[roansgraham]

Before I begin to write, my hand will tremble. My whole left arm jolts with nervous energy and my fingers cradle the pen with a little too much awareness. I think aimlessly until a word comes, then half a sentence, then a sentence. Then and only then will I start writing. Everything after the first sentence is simply that; what follows is like the trail under a flashlight, first dark, now visible. The rest is the rest. I write to unleash my secrets. I write down all the things I am too scared to say out loud. After avoiding writing for some time I noticed the secrets will try to find new exits, be it with my voice or my actions. The secrets are my truths, and such things are better off existing somewhere real, rather than caged up in my mind. If I let them stay there, the thoughts would manifest into a darkness even words couldn't describe. So I have to write them down.

[roansgraham]

I swear an alien wrote this.

[roansgraham]

Remember that crazy high school crush you were obsessed with? Yeah, me neither.

[roansgraham]

Results of infatuation writing may vary.

[roansgraham]

I'm new here. I will be writing and posting old writing. If you like what I have to share, please follow. If you want to know what I am about, you can read what I write and interpret it for yourself, or ask me in messages because I secretly enjoy a good conversation about writing. Thanks and have a good day.