#suddenstrangesurrenders

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

The Mother Wound.

{Jenny Slate, from Little Weirds. Me, from Clean Out Your Inbox. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945) Franny Choi, Bad Daughter. Anne Carson, Sophocles “Elektra" translation. Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless. Jeannette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? Mary Oliver, When Did It Happen?}

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

More from Pincers on my Substack. <3

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

[Rage is a quiet thing

You think that you've tamed it

But it's just lying in wait

Oh, rage

Is it in my veins?

Feel it in my face when

When I least expect it]

The meat tenderiser is broken

-necked so, I must soften

the beef with my father’s

hands, marrow-thick

with knowledge

the meat must be beaten

brutal into tenderness.

That anybody softens

with violence.

Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have.

Rage & it’s violence.

— portrait taken from @rawrrkiyomi (1) Mad Honey Symposium, Sally Wen Mao. (2) Anais Nin. (3) Venetian Smile by Richard Burlet (4) Simmer from Petals for Armour by Hayley Williams. (5) Cover art for the florence + the machine/ethel cain collab Morning Elvis by Peegpin. (6) Wound from the mouth of a wound, Torrin A. Greathouse. Thirst, Mary Oliver. (7) Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1952 (8)

© 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko/Artists Rights Society (ARS)

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

Synonyms for “i love you”

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“I chewed nine consecutive sticks of gum, to remind myself I was still alive”

— The Idiot, Elif Batuman

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Rage as rot. Rage as raising your voice when you should’ve whispered. Rage as whispering when you should’ve raised your voice. Rage as mustard seeds fallen on barren ground. Rage. Abundant and plentiful. Rage, a cocoon I make for myself. “Chrysalis” wetting my lips.

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

— Anne Carson, Norma Jean Baker of Troy

[suddenstrangesurrenders]

I am writing because I seek understanding, not because I have come to some decisive conclusion, and can now use hindsight to shape the experience into a narrative. My present life (the now that surrounds the writing but isn’t the act) is perforated by intense desires and the reactive emotions that rise to meet them.

— from my latest personal essay Losing My Favourite Game (yes like The Cardigans song)