#background queers

[acosmic]

They are sitting stock-still in the car. You cannot help but wonder if it gave him a pain in the neck to hold his head that way for the numerous minutes of the exposure. Or what the two of them talked about under their breath that day, as the photographer fiddled with his lenses and the cicadas sang in the hawthorn hedge and a summer afternoon at the farthest edge of human love extended itself before them into, apparently, eternity. Maybe they discussed "a small cabin." Maybe "it burned down."

from “appendix 59 on a bad photograph,” the last section of anne carson’s the albertine workout.

[acosmic]

“I’m sorry about the blood in your mouth. I wish it was mine.” —Richard Siken from “Little Beast”

“I love you. If you hadn’t existed I would have had to invent you.” —Elaine Dundy from “The Dud Avocado”

“I will come back from the dead for you.” —Richard Siken from “You Are Jeff”

no clue where these came from; i’ve had this draft saved for about two years. but anyways this is the gay, overdramatic essence of background queers

[acosmic]

It has been a philosophic cliché since Heraklitos that human beings in general are sleepwalkers. ... But this is not the distinction Proust wants to draw. He woke swept aside by something that had passed. On the wrong shore and his heart broke.  He lay puzzled by this, then got up to write a letter. "Dear Heraklitos," he wrote, "theory is good but it doesn't prevent things from existing."

abbreviation of “appendix 40 on sleep theory,” from anne carson’s the albertine workout.

[acosmic]

From prison, and from plunging prows of ships Through flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips-- - When darkness is made fast with seals and bars, And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars, - Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire, Pain animate the dust of dead desire - Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath, And mix his immortality with death. Why hath he made us? what had all we done That we should live and loathe the sterile sun.

algernon charles swinburne’s “anactoria”, 1866.

[acosmic]

Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up, I've filled our glasses, let us sup, And do not let me think of you, Lest shame of yours suffice for two.

dante gabriel rosetti, “jenny”

[acosmic]

Again, all things alike would be destroyed. ...  A touch would be enough to cause damnation.

lucretius’ on the nature of the universe, trans. ronald melville. no context given.

[acosmic]

ESTRAGON: We’ve no rights any more? [Laugh of VLADIMIR, stifled as before, less the smile.] VLADIMIR: You’d make me laugh if it wasn’t prohibited.

waiting for godot, by samuel beckett.

[acosmic]

VLADIMIR: You’re a hard man to get on with, Gogo. ESTRAGON: It’d be better if we parted. VLADIMIR: You always say that and you always come crawling back. ESTRAGON: The best thing would be to kill me, like the other. VLADIMIR: What other? [Pause] What other? ESTRAGON: Like billions of others.

waiting for godot, by samuel beckett.