clambering above the clouds

[𝖛. 𝖛𝖆𝖑𝖊]. a peripatetic sylvan recluse and storyteller devoted to the solitary life. personal writings are tagged under v.v.

[sylvanecritures]

alluvial

She wakes on her back. A turtle flipped on its shell—limbs extended and treading air. Pressed between her and the alluvial soil is a stick tracing the length of her spine. Traces of snow cling frozen in shadow. The girl’s eyes, oceans—briny abysses, pouring out liquid currents to clear her vision mix with the canal of her throat and nasal passages, carrying her out to sea. 

But she came back. 

Why?

Beside her is a grave, angry and gaping. Her leg hangs over the edge—a shoelace dipped into the chasm like an abandoned thought.

Someone meant to bury me. 

[sylvanecritures]

She went back inside, lit a candle, said a prayer, and drank a glass of water. Alongside the violence of her shattering heart was a single cap, pried from the lip of a bottle and placed within her palm. Absolved from outside influence, this reckoning was now within her power. Bodies of water, be damned, she stripped and waded into the nearby lake, sin sloughing off. Leopoldine reemerged, air moving into her canal—a hopeful burst, a coughing fit, the top-shelf refrain of a life no longer fated to graves, liquids, and reckless currents.

[psikonauti]

lightbeyondtheframe

Shadow Celebration, 2022

[chillpotato]

- Sylvia Plath, from the 'Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath'

[sylvanecritures]

also, really not interested in all the 50+ onlyfans/sex accounts that have been following me lately. time to take the trash out, i suppose.

[michaelnordeman]

A beautiful winter day. Värmland, Sweden (January 10, 2021).

[renamonkalou]

Visiting a fairy tale | Vadim Gorodnitsky

[weltenwellen]

Natalie Díaz, from "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word", Postcolonial Love Poem

[sylvanecritures]

I've always hated the expression "write what you know." It's a hall pass for the imagination-imparied.

[gnossienne]

Margaret Atwood, “Waiting” from Morning in the Burned House

[sylvanecritures]

I act as if I don't care if people dislike me. Deep down... I secretly enjoy it.

[weirdletter]

In the Dead of Night the Lethal Spider Walks, by Felipe Froeder (Arcano XV Collage), via Instagram.

[sitpwgs]

tea time reads book club october pick → babel by r.f. kuang

“i think translation can be much harder than original composition in many ways. the poet is free to say whatever he likes, you see – he can choose from any number of linguistic tricks in the language he’s composing in. word choice, word order, sound – they all matter, and without any one of them the whole thing falls apart. that’s why shelley writes that translating poetry is about as wise as casting a violet into a crucible. so the translator needs to be translator, literary critic, and poet all at once – he must read the original well enough to understand all the machinery at play, to convey its meaning with as much accuracy as possible, then rearrange the translated meaning into an aesthetically pleasing structure in the target language that, by his judgment, matches the original. the poet runs untrammeled across the meadow. the translator dances in shackles.”

[metamorphesque]

“This tremendous world I have inside of me. How to free myself, and this world, without tearing myself to pieces. And rather tear myself to a thousand pieces than be buried with this world within me.” ― Franz Kafka

1. Sylvia Plath | 2. Anne Magill | 3. Franz Kafka | 4. Cathy Hegman | 5. Haruki Murakami | 6. Hope Gangloff | 7. Franz Kafka | 8,9. Sylvia Plath | 10. Cathy Hegman | 11. F. Scott Fitzgerald | 12. Cathy Hegman | 13. Haruki Murakami 

[sylvanecritures]

In the dramatic aftermath of a collision between galaxies, a streak of dust is all that remains. Vast streams of particles shoot from the center, evidence of a hidden black hole. With the source of gravity defined, the knot of stars blink bright in tight orbits. I am regulated and contained with a monster in the middle. To know my tendency towards escapism exists does not scare me. The pull of greater or lesser distractions no longer unnerve me. I am a former resident of the murk, of the needle thin thread holding me aloft. I am a grain-sized fleck of the universe, shinning and still spinning with my love in our own rotation.

[sylvanecritures]

these wicked wants

they planted incantations, funneling consciousness into simple vessels suddenly too aware of themselves to stand. On and on they sailed, leagues above, leagues below. Too fast to be seen by the naked eye. The ship’s inhabitants were dazed—asleep at the wheel and willing to wreck. Where would they go now? Could they be convinced to listen—to obey the laws of Physics? The island moved, losing parts of itself all the time. Magic, even the dark sort, could not be used or harvested in continuous supply. Eventually, they would have to stop—would have to deal with the war they started, would have to answer to the summoner. 

[gnossienne]

from Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment eds George Sebastian Rousseau, Roy Porter (1987)