#chris cleave

[askyea-poesy]

I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.

Chris Cleave

[sinligh]

A siren, a female being made of liquid stars and all the unnecessary wars. A beauty that is overpowered by rejection an overdose of a vitamin…

Well, I’m begged for redemption only i lure to self destruction.

I sing about broken promises that lasts a lifetime and fears that grow as you do... grow viscously, and as big as the void an emotionally absent parent can leave behind in you.

I’m one year closer to my mid twenties It took me a life time to realize It’s not love that I’ve been starved from

It’s the comfort of feeling seen, without dressing myself up with all the glamorous words that I weighed myself down with since i was a child

forced to communicate; only to please. Now I sing, and it’s out of tune but I seduce and I ruin.

I was loved growing up, i felt so even when no one ever gave me a definition to what love really means.

Maybe they didn’t even know it was missing.

I felt indestructible so I kept stripping my love from misconceptions; only to be left with suffering

Now I know better. It’s either leaving or being left and both in a way are synonyms of love.

the residual of that love is almost nonexistent among the memories that resemble a never ending internal bleeding.

That being said, tragedies stands out more and i use them like bookmarks to my memories.

So i love; and i leave.

I cut into myself with my own teeth dissecting the pieces with my tongue knowing very well how much it will hurt me to taste something that i don’t recognize…

I spend most of my hours dwelling on all the parts of me that make me a duplication of my mother

hypocritically i pack them in the carry on bag that’s always open on my bedroom floor

So ready to leave; just like my father. he emptied more of me in his bags every weekend for business trips

Carving unintentional hollows and leaving them for my mother to fill.

I thought he was the one sacrificing himself, until I noticed that alot of my missing pieces are still under his bed.

Mama doesn’t like it when I point out where my father went wrong she loves him too much, and i .. i reflect that love; by leaving

I know they did their best molding me into a human that knows how to survive, but that’s all I know now.

I don’t understand affection, nor how to accept it in my body.

Not even when I crave it; i suspect it’s because I’m too full of myself and if I feel this way… why would I expect anyone to carve themselves out to fit me in ?

Anyway, I don’t know how to ask women for acceptance and men can’t stand me cause I don’t flatter them

Love sounds like a curse to me.

What if I loved for all the wrong reasons?

my body understands the mechanisms to create another life from love, but i don’t.

I fear that the taste of motherhood will resemble that of a defense mechanism.

•••

•Quotes: Alexander Pushkin/George Eliot/ Leo Tolstoy/ Chris Cleave/Clarice Lispector/ Anne Carson/ Kiki Nicole/ Richard Siken/ Lidia Yuknavitch/ Sylvia Plath/ Franz Kafka

•Original context: Sinligh

•Art reference:

1. A young beauty reclining on a bed By Enjolras Delphin. 2. Details of John William Godward's: Eurypyle (1921) 3. Details of John William Godward's: Eurypyle(1921) 4. Painting by Roberto Ferri (details). 5. The Table (1971-80) Antonio Lopez Garcia. 6. Painting by Alex Venezia. 7. Narzissin by Josef Fischnaller. 8. Painting by Valeria Duca. 9. Painting by Ricky Mujica.

[cillmequick]

My love, can you drop some book recs? I’m in desperate need for new books even though I have 537464 unread ones in my bookshelf 🙃

Ooooooh!! I’m sorry to be slow on this but I have Been Pondering what to include here and I am definitely going to hit publish and realise I forgot something important so keep an eye out for edits 😂

So without knowing your taste, I’m going to try and give a range of stuff I like and hopefully something with vibe with you…

♡ The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

This magical story is one of my ALL TIME fav books. I want to live in it. I want to visit the circus and be part of their following. And if they ever make a movie of it I will be ON EDGE waiting for them to make a mess of it 🙈 Her new book, The Starless Sea is also great.

♡ The Book Thief - Markus Zuzak

You probably already know this one (there’s a film) but it’s beautiful and heartbreaking and I adore it. Markus’s other work is really worth reading too.

♡ Persuasion - Jane Austen

Again, not new but a lesser hyped Austen book. One of my absolute favs and regular comfort read.

♡ The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker

I fell in love with Pat’s books when I was at school - she wrote an amazing book about WW1 poets, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon called Regeneration that I also highly recommend. But this one is the first in a series about the women of Troy. It tells the story of the fall of Troy from the perspective of the women, whose voices are often overlooked if they feature at all. It’s INSANELY good and the follow up, The Women of Troy, is just as compelling.

♡ The Thursday Murder Club - Richard Osman

You’ll probably have heard of this cos it was one of the fastest selling books ever a couple of years ago but BELIEVE THE HYPE! It’s utterly hilarious and charming and captivating. And the follow up books are just as wonderful.

♡ Incendiary - Chris Cleave

This is a pretty horrific tale so be warned, but it’s so engrossing. I read the whole thing in a day and even though it’s years now since I did that I can still remember it and have vivid images in my head from it.

♡ Afterwards - Rosamund Lupton

Another with difficult subject matter that has never left me, years after reading. I adore her books.

♡ Just One Damned Thing After Another - Jodi Taylor

I am OBSESSED with these books (this is the first in a long series called The St Mary’s Chronicles). Time travelling historians experiencing and documenting historical events in contemporary time with a whole heap of mayhem. Rip-roaring rides but with some darker themes to ground them in something more grown up and if you like history they’re such a fabulous glimpse at the past. She’s a master of her craft. Also check out (but only after you’ve got a decent chunk through this series) The Time Police books.

♡ The Word Is Murder - Anthony Horowitz

I love Anthony’s books for grown ups (also check out Magpie Murders) but this is such a clever twist on detective fiction. He’s written himself into the stories and it’s a wonderful meld of murder mystery and insight into the life of a writer. This is the first of a series that is still ongoing.

♡ Invisible Women - Caroline Criado Perez

This is the only non-fiction book on my list cos I prefer fiction as my reading for pleasure. This is all about how the data we gather and use in designing everything from city planning to healthcare to workplaces neglects to take into account the different needs of women compared to men. It will fill you with rage but it’s an important read.

♡ Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

Ok so I love Margaret Atwood’s books and could have listed so many here. But this was the first I read after studying Handmaid at school, when I was finally old enough to get it a bit better. Sometimes referred to as The Madd Addam trilogy, this is the first of three books set in the not too distant future where (surprise surprise, is Mags) everything has gone wrong. Slightly sci-fi, very relatable and a bit scary. Also check out The Blind Assassin and Alias Grace for slightly less dystopian future vibes.

♡ The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

A story within a story set in 1940s Barcelona and involving a secret, hidden library. It’s beautiful and dark and full of twists. First (tho not chronologically - a prequel was published years later so I recommend reading in publication order) in a small series.

♡ His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

I can’t write this list without it but you’ll have undoubtedly come across/read it already. Fun fact, a very sweet boy from Dublin called Cillian gave me my copy of The Northern Lights (no, not that one, sadly!). I re-read these books almost every year, I adore them.

♡ Dissolution - CJ Samson

Amazing series (this is the first) about a lawyer in Tudor London becoming embroiled in the dangerous and murky world of court politics. Crime mysteries with a historical twist written by someone who a true scholar of his attention to detail. First book isn’t the best of them but if you stick with it, it really all kicks up a gear in book 2. For a different historical era, also check out Winter In Madrid (1930s Spain) or Dominion (AU where the fascists take over England during WW2).

♡ A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Everyone has heard of The Kite Runner (which is excellent) but I actually prefer this one. If the kite runner is a boy’s experience of Afghanistan, this is the female perspective. Brutal and beautiful and enraging and hopeful.

And that’s probably enough! 🙈 Hope you can find something new to tickle your fancy, xxx

[beautiful-noises]

concept playlist vii

playlists based on book quotes

“...his love was too much for him, he felt paralyzed, he wanted to sleep inside her lungs and breathe her blood and be smothered.”- tim o'brien, the things they carried

“the true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place.” - michael chabon, the amazing adventures of kavalier & clay

"and i ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. that is what the scar makers want us to think. but you and i, we must make an agreement to defy them. we must see all scars as beauty. okay? this will be our secret. because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. a scar means, i survived.” - chris cleave, little bee

“what is the soul? what color is it? i suspected my soul, being mischievous, might slip away while i was dreaming and fail to return. i did my best not to fall asleep, to keep it inside of me where it belonged.” - patti smith, just kids

concept playlists i, ii, iii, iv, v, vi

[lillyli-74]

Photography by HomeBass

I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.

~Chris Cleave

[quotemadness]

A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means I survived.

Chris Cleave

[contedivaldoca]

Tutte le cose che reputiamo eccezionali sono semplicemente prese in prestito dalla normalità, e a un certo punto dobbiamo restituirle senza preavviso

“I coraggiosi saranno perdonati”, C.Cleave

[mesutbahtiyarolacak]

Siz makineler dünyasında yaşıyorsunuz ve kalbi çarpan şeylerin düşünü kuruyorsunuz.Biz makineleri düşlüyoruz çünkü çarpan kalplerin bizi terk ettiğini gördük.